Wireless mesh networking for the Outdoor Sports (Orienteering)

Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan(KTH) Final Report

Royal Institute of Technology 8/29/2011

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Wireless mesh networking for the Outdoor Sports (Orienteering)



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Wireless mesh networking for the Outdoor Sports (Orienteering)

Iqram Ali Mohamed

Master of Science Thesis in System on Chip Design

NEP (Norrtelje Elektronikpartner AB)

Sweden

Kista, August 2010

Industry Supervisor Examiner and Supervisor

Anders Söderbärg, PhD,

NEP (Norrtelje Elektronikpartner AB)

Norrtälje, Sweden.

Professor Li-Rong Zheng,

Professor Fredrik Jonsson

Dept. of Electronics @KTH

Royal Institute of Technology



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Abstract

Orienteering is played at different terrain lands. Competitors are allowed to carry a topograph-

ical map and a magnetic compass. Map has standard signs and sequence of number signifies

as the check points one who accomplish all the check points in sequence in shortest period of

time is a winner and it requires good map navigational skill.

Real time online analysis of orienteering sports is the one still doesn’t exist and tracking

orienteering competitors is challenging thing to implement using passive RFID wireless mesh

network. Tracking the competitors using wireless mesh network makes this sport attractive

and interesting to global online viewers. Existing devices provides only the offline analysis.

This will allow viewers to view live progress of participants’ positions. Currently existing

available systems for monitoring Orienteering competitors unable to facilitate online analysis

feature so this feature is easier for spectators to track the competitor’s position.

In this project, I described about my implementation, designing and testing of designed wire-

less mesh hardware device to NEP AB Company and this device can be used in other outdoor

sports for tracking the competitors and also be used in other tracking applications like mili-

tary, medical and asset tracking. Wireless device is implemented using two ISM band

915MHz and 434MHz lowest frequency is to cover the longest range.

Hardware device designed, which communicate from one node to other node performs receiv-

ing, transmitting and forwarding the packet. I defined the protocol standard which is com-

pliance of IEEE 805.15.4 for the WPAN the communication pattern is to provide reliable and

robust communication between the transmitter and receiver.

Idea is to print the passive 13.56 MHz RFID tag behind the map, so competitors no need to

carry anything apart from map and compass. Instead of RFID reader, in this project I have

given the interrupt from the button and integrate reader part is considered as the future work.

Passive RFID and wireless mesh network is the emerging field and reliable way of tracking

competitors. In which data collected from the each check point with real-time data transmis-

sion and all nodes information is monitored from the main control unit.

This thesis describes a functional prototype of device which is used in tracking the outdoor

sports competitors and the main target is to track the Orienteering competitors in the terrain

land.



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Acronym and abbreviations

WPAN Wireless personal area network

WMN Wireless mesh network

BOM Bill of material

TRX transceiver

EPC Electronic Product Code

KTH Kunliga Tekniska Högskolan

GUI Graphic user interface

GPS Global positioning system

GIS Geographical information system or geospatial information system

SMS Short Message Service

GSM Global System for Mobile

Si DK Silicon Lab Development Kit

ISR Interrupt service routine

MCU Main control Unit

RTC Real Time Clock

RTI Real Time Interruption

SMCLK Sub-master Clock

SW Software

MAC Medium Access control

SPI Serial Peripheral Interface Bus

RFID Radio-frequency identification

ISM Industrial, Scientific and Medical

AFC Automatic Frequency Controller

MAC Medium Access control

PHY Physical layer

ETSI European Telecommunications Standards Institute

LBT Listen before Talk

PLL Phase-locked loop

VCO Voltage controlled oscillator

LBD Low battery detection

GFSK Gaussian Frequency Shift Keying

FSK Frequency Shift Keying



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Acknowledgments

It is my immense pleasure to thank NEP (Norrtelje Elektronikpartner AB), VD Anders

Söderbärg for support and guidance throughout the entire project work. Providing me an op-

portunity to work at NEP AB and funding to work on this thesis project. His motivation and

prominence support during my entire project work made me to reach all milestones of project

work.

Sincere thanks to Anders as being supervisor at NEP AB; he always has been around with me

for constant encouragement, help whenever required and his eminence guidance during all my

endeavors of project work. I want to thank Avnet AB, Kenneth Nilsson, Technical account

manager for his support.

I am delighted to thank my other friends at NEP AB Sven, Takashi, Martin and Johan for

there support during field testing.

Sincere thanks to KTH supervisor Professor Fredrik Jonsson for his feedback, motivation,

guidance and observing the flow of my work.

I would also like to express my gratitude to examiner Dr. Li rang for his guidance.

To my dear parents Shameem, Mohamed Ali and my brother Imran for encouragement and

motivation throughout my carrier to reach towards excellence which made me to come this

far.



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Table of contents

Abstract ............................................................................................................................................................ 4

Acronym and abbreviations ............................................................................................................................... 5

Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................................................ 7

Table of figures............................................................................................................................................... 10

1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 12

1.1 Idea and Motivation ....................................................................................................................... 12

1.2 Major Objectives ............................................................................................................................ 12

1.3 Architecture of the project .............................................................................................................. 12

1.4 Thesis Structure (outline) ............................................................................................................... 13

2. Background ............................................................................................................................................ 16

2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 16

2.2 Orienteering ................................................................................................................................... 18

2.2.1 Literatre study about Orienteering .......................................................................................... 18

2.2.2 Analysis and study on existing Orienteering method ............................................................... 21

3. Solution for hardware design .................................................................................................................. 24

3.1 Standards for wireless mesh network/WPAN .................................................................................. 24

3.2 RF transceiver development kit ...................................................................................................... 24

3.3 Prioritizing the task in HW design: ................................................................................................. 26

3.4 Risk Analysis in implementation .................................................................................................... 26

3.5 Working with the wireless Development Kit ................................................................................... 27

4. RF range and frequency calculation: ....................................................................................................... 30

4.1 Frequency Programming: ............................................................................................................... 30

4.2 Frequency offset: ........................................................................................................................... 31

4.3 Frequency Offset Adjustment: ........................................................................................................ 32

4.4 TX data rate generator: ................................................................................................................... 33

4.5 Multipath Wave propagation .......................................................................................................... 33

4.6 Theoretical Calculation of Antenna EIRP ....................................................................................... 34

5. Hardware design ..................................................................................................................................... 36

5.1 Functional Block diagram of the hardware device ........................................................................... 37

5.2 Network Protocol used: .................................................................................................................. 39

5.2.1 Listen Before Talk ................................................................................................................. 43

5.2.2 Packet Forwarding ................................................................................................................. 45

5.2.3 Automatic Acknowledgement ................................................................................................ 46

5.2.4 Low battery detection: ........................................................................................................... 46

5.2.5 Packet format......................................................................................................................... 47

5.2.6 Receiving data: ...................................................................................................................... 48

5.2.7 Packet configuration: ............................................................................................................. 49

5.2.8 Packet Forwarding ................................................................................................................. 51

5.2.9 Packet Filtering ...................................................................................................................... 51

5.3 Transmission and reception Operations: .......................................................................................... 54

5.4 Flow chart of the mesh networking operation: ................................................................................. 56



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5.5 Transmitter power levels: ............................................................................................................... 58

5.6 Modulation type used ..................................................................................................................... 60

6. Antenna.................................................................................................................................................. 61

6.1 Attenuation from trees .................................................................................................................... 61

6.2 Antenna Diversity .......................................................................................................................... 62

6.3 RSSI level to qualify antenna selection ........................................................................................... 64

6.4 Wave Equation for the future antenna design for better performance ............................................... 65

6.5 Radiation patterns: ......................................................................................................................... 67

6.5.1 What is the purpose of directional antenna? ............................................................................ 67

6.5.2 Simulated Antenna Radiation Plot .......................................................................................... 67

7. Field testing and Analysis of the data ...................................................................................................... 70

7.1 Testing the hardware device ........................................................................................................... 70

7.2 Factors affecting the coverage ........................................................................................................ 71

7.3 Serial Port Programming Software ............................................................................................. 72

8. Battery life Estimation ............................................................................................................................ 74

8.1 AA Battery: ................................................................................................................................... 74

8.2 AAA Battery .................................................................................................................................. 74

8.3 Continuous Operation (25MIPS) for the AAA Battery: ................................................................... 75

8.4 Lithium battery AAA: 15 years 19100 ............................................................................................ 76

9. Future work ............................................................................................................................................ 77

9.1 RFID reader System level design .................................................................................................... 77

9.2 Antenna diversity proposal for future use ........................................................................................ 78

9.2.1 State diagram of antenna diversity .......................................................................................... 78

10. Summary ........................................................................................................................................... 81

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................. 82

APPENDIX A: ............................................................................................................................................... 84

APPENDIX: B (NEP) ..................................................................................................................................... 85

APPENDIX C................................................................................................................................................. 90

APPENDIX D ................................................................................................................................................ 91

APPENDIX E ................................................................................................................................................. 92

REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................................... 95



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Table of figures FIGURE 1-1 ARCHITECTURE OF THE PROJECT ........................................................................................................ 13

FIGURE 1-2 PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION PHASE..................................................................................................... 14

FIGURE 2-1 RFID ENABLED WIRELESS TRX ENTIRE PRODUCT BLOCK DIAGRAM ........................................... 16

FIGURE 2-2 RFID ENABLED WIRELESS TRX ENTIRE PRODUCT BLOCK DIAGRAM ............................................ 17

FIGURE 2-3 TYPES OF ORIENTEERING ...................................................................................................................... 19

FIGURE 2-4 GPS/GIS NAVIGATION SYSTEM FLOW ARCHITECTURE .................................................................... 21

FIGURE 2-5 HARDWARE FUNCTIONAL BLOCK OF GPS/GIS POSITIONING SYSTEM .......................................... 22

FIGURE 2-6 SPORTIDENT-GSM DEVICE FOR ORIENTEERING ............................................................................... 22

FIGURE 2-7 HARDWARE PROTOTYPE DESIGN ......................................................................................................... 23

FIGURE 3-1 P2P.............................................................................................................................................................. 28

FIGURE 3-2 MULTIPLE NODE ...................................................................................................................................... 28

FIGURE 3-3 STAR NETWORK TOPOLOGY ................................................................................................................. 28

FIGURE 3-4 MESH NETWORK...................................................................................................................................... 29

FIGURE 4-1 FREQUECNY OFFSET ............................................................................................................................... 31

FIGURE 4-2 TRANSMISSION AND RECEPTION FACTORS IN WIRELESS MEDIUM ............................................... 31

FIGURE 4-3 RADIUS CALCULATION USING FERSNEL EQUATION ........................................................................ 32

FIGURE 5-1 GENERAL HW SI-DK DIAGRAM ............................................................................................................. 37

FIGURE 5-2 FUNCTIONAL HW BLOCK DIAGRAM .................................................................................................... 37

FIGURE 5-3 SI-DK HW BLOCK DIAGRAM .................................................................................................................. 38

FIGURE 5-4 RX/TX DIRECT TIE HW ............................................................................................................................ 39

FIGURE 5-5 RX/TX DIRECT TIE HW ............................................................................................................................ 39

FIGURE 5-6 PROTOCOL IMPLEMENTED LAYERS..................................................................................................... 40

FIGURE 5-7 TRANSMITTER TIMININGS ..................................................................................................................... 41

FIGURE 5-8 RECEIVER PACKET TIMINGS ................................................................................................................. 41

FIGURE 5-9 PROTOCOL ARCHITECTURE LAYER DIAGRAM .................................................................................. 42

FIGURE 5-10 PROTOCOL ARCHITECTURE BLOCK DIAGRAM ................................................................................ 42

FIGURE 5-11 FUNCTIONAL DIAGRAM OF THE STACK ............................................................................................ 43

FIGURE 5-12 APPLICATIONS ENABLED AND DEFINED ON THE PROTOCOL ....................................................... 43

FIGURE 5-13 LBT FLOWCHART .................................................................................................................................. 44

FIGURE 5-14 PACKET DATA FORMAT ....................................................................................................................... 47

FIGURE 5-15 RECEIVING DATA FORMAT .................................................................................................................. 48

FIGURE 5-16 DEVICE WORKING STATE DIAGRAM.................................................................................................. 50

FIGURE 5-17 PACKET FILTERING METHOD .............................................................................................................. 52

FIGURE 5-18 FLOWCHART OF TRX DEVICE AT VARIOUS MODES ........................................................................ 54

FIGURE 5-19 TRANSMIT MODE ................................................................................................................................... 54

FIGURE 5-20 RECEIVER MODE ................................................................................................................................... 54

FIGURE 5-21 TRANSMITTER NODE ............................................................................................................................ 56

FIGURE 5-22 FORWARDING MODE ............................................................................................................................ 57

FIGURE 5-23 RECEIVER NODE FLOWCHART ............................................................................................................ 58

FIGURE 6-1 RADIATION PATTERN VERTICAL POSITION........................................................................................ 61

FIGURE 6-2HORIZONTAL POSITION .......................................................................................................................... 61

FIGURE 6-3 MULTIPLE PATH FADING. ...................................................................................................................... 62

FIGURE 6-4 RF SWITCH ANTENNA ............................................................................................................................. 63

FIGURE 6-5 FACTORS AFFECTING THE ANTENNA .................................................................................................. 63

FIGURE 6-6 ANTENNA DIVERSITY HARDWARE DESIGN........................................................................................ 64

FIGURE 6-7 RSSI LEVEL ............................................................................................................................................... 64

FIGURE 6-8 SPHERICAL WAVE ................................................................................................................................... 66

FIGURE 6-9 RADIATION PATTERN OF ELECTRIC AND MAGNET FIELD ............................................................... 67

FIGURE 6-10 RADIATION PATTERN OF E AND H, POWER RADIATION PATTERN .............................................. 68

FIGURE 6-11 434MHZ LINEAR DIPOLE SIMULATION RESULT ............................................................................... 68

FIGURE 6-12 434MHZ SCAN FIELD AND POWER ...................................................................................................... 68

FIGURE 6-13 434MHZ ANGLE REFERENCE ................................................................................................................ 69

FIGURE 9-1 FUNCTIONAL BLOCK OF RFID READER DESIGN ................................................................................ 77



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FIGURE 9-2 ANTENNA DIVERSITY STATE DIAGRAM ............................................................................................. 78

FIGURE 9-3 RSSI SELECTION OF ANTENNA.............................................................................................................. 79

FIGURE 9-4 PERMEABILITY STRENGTH ANTENNA DETECTION........................................................................... 80



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1. Introduction

Purpose of thesis work to design hardware device for Orienteering and to any other sports

person can monitor his or her real time analysis performance using this device. This device

can be used to track positions of athletes or competitors of various sports. This sport is not

friendly either to television or spectator.

Main target of this project work is to track Orienteering competitors. Orienteering is sports

played in various terrain lands and has the number of control units or check points. One who

completes all control units within shortest time would be a winner. Participants are equipped

with the map and magnetic compass. Participants follow the order of control points sequence

mentioned in map one by one.

To make orienteering more interesting and spectator friendly, the real time position of com-

petitors can be tracked and performance analysis is displayed to the viewers with GUI inter-

face or in mobile via wireless mesh network using ISM band.

1.1 Idea and Motivation

Idea is to use wireless mesh network to track Orienteering competitors at all check points.

Each check points are enabled with wireless sensor nodes which are connected in multi-

hop mesh network or bi-directional network which perform transmitting, receiving and

packet forwarding.

1.2 Major Objectives

Objective of this thesis work is to implement multi hop or bi-directional wireless mesh

networking system and also this application can be implement in other outdoor sports and

ultimate goals are

Analysis on existing system on Orienteering sports

Defining a standard for the communication and wireless mesh networking device

with low power consumption

Communication between two or three units and one unit acts as central unit.

Simple field tests, where the runners is simulated by simple touch

Future study to incorporating the RFID reader with this device.

1.3 Architecture of the project

The architecture of the entire product which is targeted for the orienteering application

explained briefly. Scope of this work is limited to the layer1, this layer describes the de-

fining a protocol standard for reliable and robust communication with a concern of power

consumption. Brief overview of the entire product from layer1 to layer 4 is described be-

low. Layer 1 is hardware layer later which consists of RFID reader, Antenna, RF module



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and Protocol stack. This layer interacts with the users (runners) and it collects the raw data

from a RFID transponder. This initiates the RF module of ISM band 915MHZ and

434MHz and it will initialize the radio for transmission of data in 64 bytes packet. RF

module is a transceiver which performs bi-direction communication and packet forward-

ing feature is enabled. Device used is SI1004/Si1000 DK (Development Kit). Protocol

stack used is a proprietary. In this application layer it performs filtering and cyclic redun-

dant check (CRC) check for the redundant data.

One main node is connected to the PC from that other nodes status can be monitored. The

data from layer 1 is transferred to layer 2 which is middleware installed in the data centre,

this layer acts as repository for the filtered data and this is used as virtual track.layer2

transfers the data to application layer which is layer 4. This application layer has graphical

user interface where user and spectator can track and trace the positions of runners. Appli-

cation layer access the data from the information stored from the database. Database is

layer 3 which consist of a node location and position and other details that can customized

according to the location. Back end layer 3 select the data from database and transfer it to

the tracking application and this will graphically show the positioning and time elapsed,

speed is calculated from the timestamp.

Figure 1-1 Architecture of the project

Layer 1 the raw data from passive RFID tag or button interrupt from the development board.

The captured data is transformed from the antenna to the middleware layer via wireless mesh

network.

1.4 Thesis Structure (outline)

This thesis work is divided into four categories, first literature study on Orienteering and

enabling this sport with emerging wireless technology to make easier for the competitors

and viewers to see the real time information about there positions.

Secondly, study on the existing Orienteering analysis system device. Thirdly, proposing a

robust solution for the hardware design with low power consumption. Fourthly design a

hardware circuit enabled with wireless mesh network and finally electronic system pack-

aging the designed hardware prototype device for Orienteering sport.

Tracking Application

Database

Middleware

Hardware layer

Wireless mesh network

Layer 4

Layer 3

Layer 2

(Thesis Work)

Layer 1



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In this entire project button interrupt is used and simulated as runners instead of getting an

interrupt from the RFID reader. Integration of RFID reader part is a future work.

Figure 1-2 Project Implementation phase

1. Preliminary Task

Collecting information about

wireless method

Orienteering analysis

2. Literature study on

Orienteering

Analysis on existing method

RFID transponder

Antena influence on communication

Dip RFID method, offline analysis,

GPS positioning system

Research on app GUI using in a

mobile

3. Proposing solution for

tracking orienteering com-

petitors

Prioritizing the task

Hardware design of wireless mesh

network

Research on available ISM band dk.

Risk Analysis

4. Hardware Design

Setting an standards for the protocol

Communication between two unit

Estimating the power consumption in

sleep mode and in active mode

Communication with two or three units

Communication protocol with more

reliable and filter features.

Field testing the device at different

terrains.

Analysis of the testing result data Final Phase

Documentation

Preliminary design bill of

material(BOM)

Project Implementation Phase at functional level



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This project work is documented in nine chapters, the first chapter gives a brief introduc-

tion about the target application Orienteering. How this sports can be spectator friendly

and the ideas and motivation for better performance. Moreover chapter 1 already empha-

sized about the objectives, architecture of the project and the break down structure of my

project work, which is easier to grasp a good picture of the project flow.

Chapter 2 contains the background information about the RFID enabled network. How it

ease the work of orienteer, conducted a qualitative research on Orienteering and types of

orienteering and the existing method i.e. offline analysis. Clearly it explains about this

sport how it is played and its map rules.

Chapter 3 is about the solution for hardware design, managed the qualitative research on

the available Wireless development kit on ISM band. I’ve tried different method of differ-

ent network topologies for this app with a major concern of power.

Chapter 4 is initial step hands on experience with the development kit, theoretical calcu-

lation of range, receiver sensitivity and the radius, measuring the other frequency pro-

gramming parameters for the frequency 915MHz and 434MHz. It explains about the other

WPAN, WMN.

Chapter 5 is hardware design which is required for this app and its functional diagram,

protocol standards are defined in this chapter. The PHY/MAC and application layer are

elaborately described. Protocol CAD design of the ISM TRX with direct tie configuration,

switch method, API programming of the software applications explained individual they

are LBT (listen Before Talk) Packet Forwarding. This chapter 5 shows a picture of pro-

gramming in standard C for the application layer with simple P2P method and other one is

Mesh network without self-healing mechanism

Chapter 6 is about the factors of antenna and how vital is the better antenna for a good

coverage, it explains about the simulation of antenna 434MHz and wave equation of the

simulated linear dipole antenna for future design.

Chapter 7 is the simulated result of battery life estimation with different batteries they are

AA, AAA, lithium and coin cell batteries.

Chapter 8 is about the future work is to integrate the RFID reader with present hardware

device and antenna diversity PCB designed device for future use.

Chapter 9: Conclusion and summary, finally the BOM is attached at Appendix and it va-

ries from TRX IC’s.



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2. Background

2.1 Introduction

Nowadays, RFID is widely used in tracking application. Motive is to enable wireless mesh

network with interrogator. Mesh network has been designed for tracking the Orienteering

competitors with low power consumption. Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is the use of

radio communication to identify the object and data capture technology to track and manage.

RFID system consists of small electronic tags contains unique identification onto an inte-

grated circuit (IC). Device (reader or interrogator) sends and electromagnetic signal to the

transponder or tag. The RFID tag transmits its electronic Product Code (EPC) is a unique

code when a signal is received from the reader. Tags have IC containing the tag ID and net-

work topology to navigate the protocol that guides discussions between the tag and reader is

connected to networks which interact with the user to control the reader and stores the cap-

tured data. Communication between the reader and tag is distinguished as downlink or for-

ward link and uplink or reverse link.

Downlink or forward link: channel carrying the information from reader to tag.

Uplink or reverse link: channel carrying the information from tag to reader.

Figure 2-1 RFID enabled wireless TRX entire product block diagram

EPC1 is a unique object identifier it consists version number, manufacturer, product and serial

number. Version number specifies the EPC format i.e. 64-bit EPC, 96-bit EPC and 256-bit

EPC. Product number is unique number allocated by manufacturer. Serial number is also

unique number which identifies an object. This EPC is used in tracking application enabled

with mesh network.

RFID transponder or tag is printed on the topographical Orienteering maps. This part is done

by KTH as a research project, printing the RFID tag on a paper. It is a passive tag has no in-

dependent source of power to drive the circuitry in the transponder and have no radio trans-

mitter.

1 EPC is a unique code designed for universal identifier provides a unique identity for every physical object

EPCs are not designed exclusively for use with RFID data carriers.

Reader RFID tag

2C 04 2F

Downlink (R-T)

Uplink (T-R)

Wireless mesh

network

2C 04 2F

ID read from tag ID stored in

memory



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Passive tag depends upon the received power from the reader to enable operation of tag cir-

cuitry, and modify interaction with the transmitted power from the reader in order to send

information back from tag [1].

Tracking system using RFID, Hardware design of the wireless mesh network and Application

layer design of networking EZMacPro Protocol is implemented in this thesis work. Device

consists of fixed RFID interrogators, passive RFID tag, RF module which is connected to

multi-hop wireless mesh network. The back end database stores the tracking data collected by

RF enabled RFID reader. RFID tag is printed on the map or it can be connected to existing

Orienteering RFID dip method device of SPORTident.

Orienteering sports has nearly 50 checkpoints in a single course. Competitors should run and

complete all the check points in a sequence with the help of topographical map and a magnet-

ic compass.

Figure 2-2 RFID enabled wireless TRX entire product block diagram

Each map is printed with RFID tag and each check points are fixed with RFID transponder

and enabled with multi-hop wireless mesh network. Participants who reach the check points

they will show there RFID tag to reader and the reader will capture the data. Captured data is

transmitted via RF module to the MCU (main control unit). If the distance of MCU and the

check point is fair it will multi-hop from the nearest check point to transmit the captured data

to MCU. From the collected timestamps from the each check points results will analyzed and

interfaced with GUI. The back end database of RFID system stores history (past information)

and the present status of the tag.



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2.2 Orienteering

2.2.1 Literatre study about Orienteering

What is orienteering?

Orienteering is running sports played in various terrain lands and has a number of control

units. One who complete all control units in the shortest time would be a winner. Partici-

pants are equipped only with a map and magnetic compass. Participants follow the order of

control points sequence mentioned in the map. Terrain land course planning depends upon

the level of competition and maps are made according to the international standard Orien-

teering maps.

Orienteering Competition types

Orienteering is organized by various levels as international, national, regional or local by

different organizations and the highest organization IOF at the international level.

Different types of orienteering are practiced commonly, they are explained below.

Cross Country Orienteering: Orienteer has to find the red and white markers which are

called control or check points in a sequence. Distance will vary from age groups few kilo-

metres for beginners. Check points will be from six and twenty situated in varying degrees

of difficulty and depends on courses, over different length. Start and finish will at the

same place sometimes.

Bike or Canoe Orienteering: Competitors travel the each point by following the sequence

on topographical map on a bike and one who accomplishes all check points in shortest time

is winner. These events are held at mountains and street bikes.

Score Orienteering: Main objective of this sport is to identify or find check points as much

as possible in a fixed time. Few check points may worth more points due to there complex-

ity in locating the checking points or further away to identify. Orienteer with more point’s

wins and points will be deduced if competitors are late.

Relay Orienteering: Is a team competition and number of legs in relay depends upon the

number of persons on a team. All the rules in this type of orienteering similar to cross

country except that a competitor has to run only one loop. Course is arranged on the basis

of cover leaf pattern in which each loop starts from common start area.

Line Orienteering: Exact routes are marked in a map as line and participants make there

map where they find each control



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Figure 2-3 Types of Orienteering

String orienteering: It is for preschool kids and for children, each control is placed along

a string which leads the child to follow a path and the level of difficulty may be varied

From the Table 2-1 course length ratios refers to course length for height climb by adding

0.1km for every 10m climb this should be noted by planners. Difficulty level 1, 2 and 3 is

more important rather than course length. Length for the various courses mentioned above in

the table is a guide. Simple area course length will be towards the top end of range and in-

contrast to more physical or difficult areas the course length at bottom end of the range.

Table 2-2 Orienteering Course Length guidelines [26]

Course

colour

Course

Length

Ratio

M21L=1.0

Minimum-

Maximum

length(km)

Difficul-

ty level

Men Women Men

Old „S‟

Classes

Women

old „S‟

Classes

Black 1.00 10.0-14.0 5 M21

Brown 0.85 8.0-12.0 5 M35

M40

Short

Brown

0.69 7.0-10.0 5 M20

M18

M45

M50

W21 M21S

Blue 0.56 5.5-7.5 5 M16

M55

M60

W35

W40

M35S

M40S

Short

Blue

0.45 4.5-6.5 5 M65 W20

W18

W45

W50

M45S

M50S

W21S

Green 0.39 3.5-5.0 5 M70 W16 M55S W35S

Bike or Canoe

Orienteering

Score Orien-

teering Relay Orienteer-

ing:

Orieenteering

Line Orienteer-

ing

String orien-

teering

Cross Country

Orienteering



20

W55

W60

M60S W40S

Short

Green

0.33 3.0-4.0 5 M75

M80

W65

W70

W75

W80

M65S

M70S

W45S

W50S

W55S

W60S

Light

Green

0.30 3.0-4.0 4 M14 W14

Long

Orange

0.50 5.0-7.0 3

Orange 0.25 2.5-3-5 3 M12 W12

Yellow 0.22 2.0-2.9 2 M10 W10

White 0.14 1.0-1.9 1

Orienteering map is a topographical standard map specific standards are followed while creat-

ing a map. Some specific standards for map making are 6.2.4(proximity of controls) 4.1.1-

13(symbols), 4.2(map corrections), 4.4.1(start position), 4.1.14(map cases), 4.2(map correc-

tions) and 5.2, 5.4(master maps).

Sample orienteering map is attached at the Appendix D. Important legends of the map are

explained below.

Black symbol in a map reperesents rock such as cliff, ston, boulders. Liner features are

trails and fence, roads and other man made things like building and ruins.

Brown represents landforms such ditches, earthbanls, contour lines and small knolls.

Blue is for water substances like rivers, streams, lake, pounds and marshes so on.

Yellow is for vegetation to open or unforested land. It reflects the brightest place if the

density of colour is more. Brightest yellow for lawns. Pale yellow for meadows with

high grass.

Green represents vegetation that running passage is smaller compare other places this

place slow down the pace of orienteer.

White signfies as forest with no undergrowth in which orienteer can run through.

Purple or red is for mentioning the orienteering course on a map.

Orienteerig maps are prepared by following different committees2 and all maps should

strictly adhere to the rules made by these committees.

2 Rules are set by these committees, Foot: International Specification for Orienteering Maps (ISOM)

Sprint: International Specification for Sprint Orienteering Maps (ISSOM) Mountain-Bike: International Specification for Mountain Bike Orienteering Maps (ISMTBOM) Ski: International Specification for Ski Orienteering Maps (ISSkiOM)



21

2.2.2 Analysis and study on existing Orienteering method

SPORTident and Emit are the two companies’ who makes the orienteering tracking device.

They make punching cards and other bi-directional devices for timing measurements.

GPS/ GIS Navigation positioning system

Orienteer can find there position on electric map using GPS/GIS3 navigation and positioning

system to cross country orienteering.

Functional block of hardware design of existing method

Figure 2-4 GPS/GIS Navigation System Flow architecture

Abstract hardware block level design for this technique is described below.

Many attempts has been made to create an electric map for the cross-country orienteering, the

device is enabled with the navigation sensor which detects the positioning of person and

communicate with GPS. Then it will show the position of runner and there pace on a display.

Figure 2-5 is the hardware functional block of one of the attempted device for cross orienteer-

ing.

Dip method is widely used nowadays from the SPORTident. It is a punch card carried by run-

ners at each checkpoint they dip this in a controller and continue there run after that the col-

lected data is analyzed, the compiled data of runners time displayed on the internet.

3 Geographical information system or geospatial information system to capture, store, analyze, manage and

present all types of geographical data and it is represented in vectors.

GPS/GIS navigation position system

Global Positioning

System

Geographic Information System

Real-time Monitoring

System



22

Figure 2-5 Hardware Functional Block of GPS/GIS Positioning System

SPORTident-WBOX GSM which uses the GSM band.

Figure 2-6 is the functional level diagram of the hardware device from the SPORTident for

Orienteering. This device utilizes the nearby GSM band for sending information in a mobile

as SMS about the time elapse of the orienteer. Microcontroller is used in this device for han-

dling the various tasks, Ethernet for connecting to internet

Target of this device is to use nearby GSM network for time measurements and other infor-

mation about athletes and it assist other SPORTident device integration.

Figure 2-6 SPORTident-GSM Device for Orienteering

µc

Data Storage

Power supply

Charging module

Accumulator

RS232

Ethernet

2.4GHz ISM

868 MHz ISM

GSM

Navigation

Sensor

GPS/GIS Mixed

Navigation

Digital Map

Display Map Match



23

Final Product Prototype design of my project

Figure 2-7 Hardware Prototype design



24

3. Solution for hardware design

Qualitative research method is carried out on the available wireless development kit product

and decided to go with ZigBee mesh network protocol, WPAN (Wireless Personal Area Net-

work), WMN (Wireless Mesh Network) and other ISM band devices.

3.1 Standards for wireless mesh network/WPAN

For this application fully functional mesh network is not needed it wastes more energy. Orien-

teering node does not need any self healing mechanism, it need an independent node which

can communicate with other nodes so use of ZigBee protocol is diminished due to minimal

coverage range and I considered ZigBee as an option for testing the power consumption.

After qualitative research decided to use IEEE 802.15.4, 4d and other compliance protocol for

the WPAN. The ISM band allocation is defined by the ITU-R4.

Frequency range Availability

6.765–6.795 MHz Subject to local acceptance

13.553–13.567 MHz No local acceptance needed



433.05–434.79 MHz Region 1 only and subject to local acceptance

Used in Europe and Africa

902–928 MHz Region 2 only

American Sub continents

2.400–2.500 GHz No local acceptance needed

5.725–5.875 GHz No local acceptance needed

24–24.25 GHz No local acceptance needed

61–61.5 GHz Subject to local acceptance

122–123 GHz Subject to local acceptance

244–246 GHz Subject to local acceptance

Tabel 3-1 ISM Band Allocation

3.2 RF transceiver development kit

4 ITU Telecommunication sector is one of three ITU sector responsible for radio communication. In 1932 the

CCIR and several other organizations (including the original ITU, which had been founded as the International

Telegraph Union in 1865) merged to form what would in 1934 become known as the International Telecommu-

nication Union. In 1992, the CCIR became the ITU-R.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megahertz

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Telecommunication_Union_region

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Telecommunication_Union_region

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigahertz



25

Various wireless devices meet the needs, what I seek for this project. But the trade off is the

power and the receiver sensitivity range. Decided to go with the device with less power con-

sumption and there modem parameters should be paramterizable. Table 3-2 is the outcome

various DK research. DK used, is Silicon Labs wireless development kit.

Table 3-2 RF TRX DK Qualitative research result

IC Frequency Vcc Output

power

GFSK FSK Package

Si-TRX 240-930 MHz 2.2v-

3.8v

-8 to +13 -118dBm -110dBm QFN20

2.2v-

3.8v

+11 to

+20

-118dBm -110dBm QFN20

SNAP

enabled

MCU

915 2.2 to

3.8v

+1 to +20 -121 -110 QFN42

868 2.2 to

3.8v

-8 to +13 -121 -110 QFN42

Micrel 868-915MHz 2 to 2.5v +10 -111dBm - 32-Pin

MLF™

433 2 to 2.5v +10 -111dBm - 32-Pin

MLF™

RFMD 868-915MHz 0.3 to2.8 19 -97 - QFN-40

Device used in this project and for future development is Si-labs wireless development kit

which provides the protocol stack for the wireless communication and it has very low power

consumption compare to other devices.

From the collected research data, chart 3-1 is plotted from the available transceivers data,

compared the availability of ISM band range IC, and output power and receiver sensitivity.

Si-lab device has better receiver sensitivity slightly than Synapse. Due to cost effect in project

Si-device is preferred.



26

Chart 3-Research data about DK and TRX

3.3 Prioritizing the task in HW design:

The major task is identifying the correct device for the ISM band radio which has interopera-

bility to work with standard C able to use other communication protocol standards.

Using this Si-DK and interacting with PC, customizing the modern parameter is comprehen-

sive. Hands on experience in an initiating the various ports and pins at the DK for radio

transmission. More focus on setting a standard for the communication between the two nodes

by thinking about using two AAA batteries. Writing a PHY and MAC layer for the communi-

cation between two nodes and add the filter methods to get rid of redundant data while trans-

mission and reception.

3.4 Risk Analysis in implementation

Coverage range may reduce at outdoors due to wet soil, densely trees, metals and hills.

Risk analysis matrix table is show below and it is range is under the scale of 5, higher the val-

ue of risk factor signifies the more vital thing need an immediate action. Prioritizing the risk

made feasible to finish the project at time line. Better antenna design may improve the cover-

age area.

Table 3-3 Risk Matrix of the project and the action plan

Risk description P C R Suggested action

C, Programming for PHY layer 1 2 2 Implementing the necessary things for ap-

plication. Writing an algorithm

Using the proprietary stack 3 2 6 Difficulties with different version of devices

Si1000/1/4.

915 915 915 915

434

868 868 868

20 20 10 19

121 118 111 97

SiLabs Synapse Micrel RFMD

ISM Transceiver Analysis

Frequency1 Frequecny 2 OutputPoer(dBm) Receiver Sensitivity



27

Avnet and SiLabs support of the

IC issue

3 3 9 Need a quick response from them regarding

the issue of si1000dk on EZMacPro.

Application Layer programming

for the mesh network

3 3 9 Hands on si1000dk for Application layer

implementation on EZMacPro protocol.

Calculating the radius between the

nodes from field test

1 1 1 Following right instructions and adapting

reliable technology in hardware design

Reliable and robust Implementa-

tion in SI1000DK

2 3 6 Analyzing the result of mesh network im-

plementation and setting up the standard

Not Estimating the time 3 3 9 Estimating the time and identifying the criti-

cal path

Conducting periodic check 1 2 2 Checking at regular interval for the verifica-

tion of work is correct

Antenna design for more gain and

position of antenna for more cov-

erage

3 2 6 Doing simulation of various types of anten-

na for 915Mhz and 434Mhz for the increase

in antenna gain.

P: Probability C: Consequence R: Risk factor (P*C)

3.5 Working with the wireless Development Kit

In this project two type of transmission is tested. One is bi directional, each node act as re-

ceiver till it gets an interrupt from the button. I have written the C code for initializing the

radio and setting the required register for the transmission. Three nodes are used in which one

is the main control unit connected to the PC and other two are remote control unit. The one

which is connected to PC is act as receiver and other nodes transmit the data to receiver node

when it gets interrupt from the button.

Other type of radio transmission method is mesh in that used a packet forwarding method.

Determined after the purchase of Si lab development kit there is a limitation in multi-hoping

and packet forwarding, it can perform up to four nodes not more than that. So the device and

protocol standard approximately cover nearly the 4km range due to use of mesh network. But

not the fully function mesh system like self healing mechanism.

One node performs transmit, receive and packet forwarding. If the node is not within the ra-

dius it will automatically forwards the packet to the destination node. I have written the C

code for following methods are tested in the DK .Sensor network nodes collect the informa-

tion from the user or environmental interrupt such as push button and transmit the collected

information to a central location node.

Target Application: Is to track the positioning of the orienteer’s by an each sensor nodes

fixed at check points.

Each check points sensor nodes are enabled with RFID reader. It reads the unique ID from

passive RFID tag printed on the topographical map which is carried out by participants

throughout the course.



28

Network Topologies:

P2P:

It is a simple wireless network topology point to point is widely used in small network im-

plementation.

Figure 3-1 P2P

Transmitting a data from multiple node to receiver node

Figure 3-2 Multiple node

Star network topology:

It is a complex topology in which one will act as a master and others act as slave node. Master

nodes controls and supervises the entire network.

Figure 3-3 Star network topology

Advantages:

Low power consumption

Disadvantages: Absence of path redun-

dancy and high probability of data loss.

Network size is depends upon the range of

transceiver.



29

Mesh network

Figure 3-4 Mesh Network

Advantages: of using mesh network

is path redundancy. It increases the

coverage range and self- healing me-

chanism.

Disadvantage: Complex design, all

the nodes in a network should have

Tx/Rx bi-directional module.

Communication medium

Table 3-1 Wireless Communication Band allocation and there features

Name Proprietary

Stack ZigBee Wi-Fi Bluetooth

Standard 802.15.x(4g,4a,

4f,5) 802.15.4 802.11.a.b.g 802.15.1

Application

Monitoring,

control and Au-

tomation

Monitoring and

control

Web, e-mail,

video

Cable re-

placement

System re-

sources

2.6kbps to

128kbps

50kbps to

60kbps >1Mbps >250kbps

Battery life

Depends upon

the network

topology

100 to >1000 1 to 5 1 to 7

Bandwidth 2.6kbps to

128kbps

20 to 250kb/s

(802.15.4,2003)

54 mbps

(802.11g,2003)

3 mbps

(v2.0 +

EDR),

2004)

Maximum

Transmission

Range (m)

1000+ 100+ 100 10

Success me-

trics

Reliability, less

power con-

sumption, re-

dundant , cost

efficient

Reliability, cost

and power

Speed, flexibili-

ty

Cost con-

venience



30

4. RF range and frequency calculation:

Section 4 explains about the theoretical calculation of RF range. The theoretical data is com-

pared with the real time data. Various factors which affect the RF range are described. Impor-

tance of antenna gain, receiver sensitivity and offset are highlighted.

4.1 Frequency Programming:

Two different ISM band radio frequencies are used in this project, one is 915 MHz and other

one is 434Mhz. Details of formulas used for calculating the receiver sensitivity, radius, range

between the TX and RX are described at Appendix A.

Frequency is programmed for these two ISM bands. For transmission and receiving desired

channel frequency (f carrier) is programmed into radio by using below formula.

Carrier frequency is generated by fraction-N Synthesizer using 10 MHz as reference frequen-

cy and the clock of third order modulator.

and are the real numbers stored in the registers.

For 434 and 915 MHz, values are

Synthesizer output frequency. Feedback loop has integer part N and fractional part F. F is

determined by carrier frequency, frequency offset and frequency deviation.

Effective partition of bands 240-960 Mhz. High band (HB) for hbsel =1 and low band (LB)

for hbsel =0. After selection of the fb (N) fractional component is solved using the below

formula

.

Formula for the theoretical calculation of the transmitted effective isotropic radiation pattern

For a dipole antenna with a gain of 6dBi



31

Then = 26dBm for 915MHz device

For 434MHz Transceiver = 19dBm

Free space loss for two frequencies 915 and 434 MHz

Distance assumed is 1 miles for both frequencies 434MHz, and for 915

MHz is

Frequency deviation Δf: peak frequency is configured from +0.625 to +320. ΔF is controlled

by register and it is not dependent on carrier frequency. ΔF will remain in an increment of

625 Hz.

4.2 Frequency offset:

Figure 4-1 Frequecny Offset

Figure 4-2 Transmission and reception factors in wireless medium

TX RX

Tx Antenna

Gain Rx Antenna

Gain

Tx Cable Loss

Rx Cable Loss

Tx Power

Rx Signal

Level

Receiver

Distance

Clear Line of sight

No Freznel Zone

ΔF

Fre

quen

cy

Time

ΔF = [8:0]*625Hz

=

;

ΔF = Peak deviation



32

Radius of the Fresnel zone calculated using this formula, in which d is the link distance in

kilometers, f is the frequency.

Fresnel zone is the area of line sight radio waves can spread out from antenna. This theoretical

calculation I assumed it on flat surface of the earth. Formula to find out the Fresnel zone is

mentioned below.

Hypothetical receiving antenna:

for the frequency 915 and 434 MHz the value of wave-

length is 0.3278 and 0.69

=

= 8.55E-3;

=

=0.038

Figure 4-3 Radius calculation using Fersnel Equation

=

= 18.106m

4.3 Frequency Offset Adjustment:

At DK, AFC (Automatic Frequency Controller) is disable frequency offset adjusted manually

using the registers. It is not possible to have both AFC and offset because due to the register,

it shares the same registers. Both of these functions are implemented using synthesizer local

oscillator frequency. Calibration range of high band is ±160KHz and in low band it is

±80KHz. For negative offset number, two’s complement of the positive offset number is re-

quired.

AFC: is to compensate the frequency difference between the receiver and the transmitter

r

d



33

4.4 TX data rate generator:

Two data rate is configured for this application. Lowest possible data rates are used for send-

ing the information, just need to send the EPC code from the RFID tag or some other data but

not the audio and video files. 2kbs and 4.2Kbs are selected for this application this leads to

reduction in the usage of power and longer battery life. TX data rate is determined by using

this formula.

Two modulation types are tested for this application one is GFSK and other one is FSK.

GFSK provides the best performance compare to the FSK.

4.5 Multipath Wave propagation

Waves which are travelling from the antenna or radiate from the antenna it try to travel in

multi-path. Wave from antenna is modified by propagation through environment ahead of

reaching to receiver. These waves are received by the antenna at receiver end and they are

distinguished as

Direct waves –line of sight path travels in a line

Reflected waves – Greater than one wavelength in size for the specific frequency in which

wave reflect from smooth surface

Scattered waves – Waves bounces off from the objects in between the rough surface of

transmitter and receiver that are much smaller than a wavelength size.

Diffracted waves- Bending the sharp corners of waves

Waves which are diffracted, scattered or reflected changes in magnitude and phase due to

1. Absorption of wave energy from the reflected surface

2. Phase change due to reflection of waves.

3. Difference in length of path traveled by waves.

Multipath wave arrives from different angles and directions

Radio waves are likely to behave as sound waves and the device which is furthest signal

strength will be weaker. From Friis equation, aspect which weakens the strength of radio sig-

nal received at farthest distance from the transmitter is

. d- is the distance from the

transmitter and receiver, n=2 strength of received radio signal is proportional to square of the

distance separating the transmitter and receiver. Value n is the exponential factor of the envi-

ronment and n= 2 is free space condition.



34

Radio waves attenuate when passing from the obstacles due to separation distance. Below

mentioned detail is about the common building material. These figures are considered to be a

good approximation and they are not to replace the field testing figures.

Table 4-1 Value of n for various factors [21]

Ambience “n Value”

Free space 2

Retail store 2.2

Grocery store 1.8

Office (Hard walls) 3

Office (Soft walls) 2.6

Remote keyless entry 4

Open field- TX and RX

at 1.5m above ground

2.5

Open office or retail

space

3

Dense office(Cubical) 4

IEEE 802.15.5 standard provides mesh networking to both high rates and low rate personal

area network. Low rate mesh network is built under 802.15.4 MAC, where as for the high rate

mesh network it uses the 802.15.3 MAC. Use of IEEE 802.15.5 is a WPAN (Wireless Person-

al Area Network) and it has two distinctive features they are

Firstly, it covers longer range due to use of Mesh network topology and the second one it de-

fines normal IEEE standards for a mesh sub layer on top existing 802.15.x MAC and PHY

layers.

Mesh Sub

layer IEEE 802.15.5- WPAN mesh

MAC/PHY

layers

Low-rate WPAN High rate WPAN

15.4b

15.4a

PHY

15.4c

CHN

15.4d

JPN

15.4e

MAC

15.4f

RFID

15..4g

SUN

15.3 15.3b 15.3c

60GHz Table 4-2 WPAN mesh and 802.15 family standards.

4.6 Theoretical Calculation of Antenna EIRP

EIRP for different types of antenna is calculated and mentioned in the below table, formula

use to calculate the EIRP is at APPENDIX A

Antenna Frequecny Measured EIRP Description of Antenna

434MHz loop -17.7 switched to -6 dB state, at

max state 0.8 dB higher (saturated)



35

434MHz ideal l/4 mono-

pole+50 Ohm matched eval

board

0.5

Ideal monopole requires a

big (d> l) perpendicular

ground plane at the antenna's feeding point

434MHz simple l/4 mono-


board

-6.5

In this case the antenna is

directly connected to the

eval board output (i.e. with-out big perpendicular

ground) and the antenna axe

is perpendicular to the eval board

434MHz folded dipole -

915MHz loop -15.2

915MHz xloop small -11.2

915MHz xloop big tbd

915MHz ideal l/4 mono-


board

-1.4 Ideal monopole requires a

big (d> l) perpendicular

ground plane at the antenna's feeding point

915MHz simple l/4 mono-pole+50 Ohm matched eval

board

-2.5 In this case the antenna is directly connected to the

eval board output (i.e. with-

out big perpendicular

ground) and the antenna axe is perpendicular to the eval

board

915MHz folded dipole -

915 MHz BIFA 2.2



36

5. Hardware design Description about the hardware used in the project from the SI-DK is mentioned below from

the data sheet, many of the sensors and calibration is not used from the DK. The used circuit

is transceiver part and the future device is in the size of daughter card [11].

Ultra Low Power: 0.9 to 3.6 V Operations

Typical sleep mode current < 0.1 μA; retains state and RAM contents over full supply

range; fast wakeup of < 2 μs

Less than 600 nA with RTC running

Less than 1 μA with RTC running and radio state retained

On-chip dc-dc converter allows operation down to 0.9 V.

Two built-in brown-out detectors cover sleep and active modes

On-Chip Debug

On-chip debug circuitry facilitates full-speed, non-intrusive in-system debug (No emulator

required)

Provides breakpoints, single stepping

Inspect/modify memory and registers

Complete development kit

High-Speed 8051 μC Core

Pipelined instruction architecture; executes 70% of instructions in 1 or 2 system clocks

Up to 25 MIPS throughput with 25 MHz clock

Expanded interrupt handler

Memory

-4352 bytes internal data RAM (256 + 4096)

-64 kB (Si1000/2/4) or 32 kB (Si1001/3/5) Flash; In-system programmable in 1024-byte

sectors—1024 bytes are reserved in the 64 kB devices

Proprietary Transceiver

Frequency range = 240–960 MHz

Sensitivity = –121 dBm

GFSK, modulation

Max output power = +20 dBm +13 dBm.

Data rate = 0.123 to 256 kbps

TX and RX 64 byte FIFOs

Digital Peripherals

-19 or 16 port I/O plus 3 GPIO pins; Hardware enhanced UART, SPI, and I2C serial ports

available concurrently

-Low power 32-bit Smart Clock

-Four general purpose 16-bit counter/timers; six channel programmable counter array

(PCA)

Package

-42-pin QFN (5 x 7 mm)

Temperature Range: –40 to +85 °C



37

This is the general overview of the DK and this can be used for various wireless applications

but the target application is for tracking the positioning of the orienteer.

Figure 5-1 General HW Si-DK diagram

5.1 Functional Block diagram of the hardware device:

Figure 5-2 Functional HW block Diagram

Transceiver maximum output power is +20dBm and other device are +13dBm with very low

receiver sensitivity range is -121dBm. Si-DK has the additional features as antenna diversity

and maximum frequency hopping is 4 nodes contrast to packet forwarding. Antenna diversity

can be enabled by slight modification on the existing PCB layout. DK has feature to support

antenna diversity by enabling the register setting using register calculator. Frequency cover-

ISM RADIO

TRX

IC

ANALOG

PERIPHERALS

DIGITAL I/O

ISP FLASH 8051 MCU

(25 MIPS) SRAM

INTERRUPTS DEBUG

CIRCUITRY

POR WDT

Si-1000 DK C8051

Mixed-Signal MCU

RFID Reader

Antenna

Interrupt



38

age range of this device in general is from 240-960MHz but used frequencies are ISM band in

156 Hz and 312 Hz steps allow precise tuning control. Other features used in the project ap-

plication are low battery detector, automatic wake-up timer, 64 byte TX/RX FIFO’s automatic

handling, and permeable detection reduces the overall current consumption. TRX has the high

performance ADC and DSP based modem used for the demodulation, filtering and packet

handling. Exact modulation, reduced spectral spreading is ensured by using the direct digital

transmit modulation and automatic PA power ramping. Entire power is compliance with glob-

al regulations including FCC, ETSI, ARIB, and 802.15.4d.

This picture is internal architecture of the entire hardware device some of the ports and pins

are needed for this app.

Figure 5-3 SI-DK HW Block diagram [11]

Type of modes used at HW device is master mode, multiple master mode, slave and master

mode. Single master with multiple master mode are feasible by changing the code of library.

Two modes are explained below which is been used and implemented in this project.

4-wire single-master mode is active by enabling NSSMD1 (SPI0CN.3) = 1, at code library.

In this mode, output pin is NSS and can be used as a slave for SPI device. Output value is

controlled by changing the code and as NSSMD0 (SPI0CN.2)



39

Figure 5-4 is hardware layout of the direct tie method in which TX and Rx are tied in contrast

to switch method Si labs microcontroller c51 is used in the DK.

Figure 5-4 RX/TX Direct tie HW

Second mode is master and slave method with 2 wire signal as master and 3-wire signal as

slave mode is seen below at the connection diagram.

Figure 5-5 RX/TX Direct tie HW

5.2 Network Protocol used:

Network communication protocol between the nodes is standard structured software stack

designed to ensure required data reaches to the destination with minimal loss of packets.

Followed standard structure of the communication protocol is suggested by Open System In-

terconnection (OSI) reference model. OSI has seven individual layers. Not all layers need to

be implemented in certain applications. In this application of small embedded wireless sensor

three layers of OSI standards are only implemented [10].ZigBee stacks reach memory re-

MISO

MOSI

SCK

MISO Slave

MOSI Device

SCK

Master

Device 1

NSS MISO

MOSI

SCK

GPIO

GPIO MISO

MOSI

SCK

NSS

Master

Device 1

Master

Device 2



40

quirements up to 128k and the stacks used in my designed application for Orienteering may

only reach 10k it is a proprietary based stacks. Modem parameters are set for the automatic

routing to reach within shortest distance to MCU.

Proprietary protocol EZMacPro software modules:

SiLabs implementation provides the common layers and the higher application layer is de-

signed by me for the best optimized Orienteering application. Physical and data link layers

are implemented using the proprietary software and the application layer and its API are writ-

ten by me.

Figure 5-6 Protocol Implemented Layers

FCC5 requirement for frequency hopping systems operates in 902-928MHz band, if +20 db

bandwidth of hopping channel is less than 250 kHz. Maximum allowed hopping channel is

500 KHz to the +20 db bandwidth. (ref)

In my application system where output power can be high without the need to FCC regula-

tions because it compliance towards ETSI6 regulations in Europe. (Mention the regulations

that meet)

Proprietary software stack supports up to four channels of frequency hopping to increase the

robustness of communication.

Features of the proprietary software

It supports wide range of addressing mode, packet-forwarding features while implementing an

advanced frequency search, packet filtering and collision detection with built in acknowledg-

ment. Wireless communication software module for embedded systems

It transmits and receive data in short packet via RF link in the ISM band and it is exclusively

used for embedded application because no part of MAC engine runs in foreground loop.

5 Federal Communications commission’s, as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (amendment to

47 U.S.C. §151) it is the FCC's mission to "make available so far as possible, to all the people of the United States, without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex, rapid, efficient, Nation-

wide, and world-wide wire and radio communication services with adequate facilities at reasonable charges.

6 ETSI standardizing is for Low Power Radio, Short Range Device, GSM cell phone system and the TETRA

professional mobile radio system. Significant ETSI standardization bodies include TISPAN (for fixed networks

and Internet convergence) and M2M (for machine-to-machine communications). ETSI inspired the creation of,

and is a partner in 3GPP.

Application

Data link layer

Physcial layer

Lower Layer

UpperLayer



41

Proprietary software is tested as peer to peer network and star network in Orienteering appli-

cation.

Proprietary software is the proprietary stack used for one of the mesh network communication

in this project. It is enabled with more addressing modes, collision detections and error detec-

tion. It has two ISR (interrupt service routines). It utilizes the resources of the proprietary

software RF IC to minimize CPU overhead.

Proprietary stack runs in the background on the main MCU

PHY layer: It provides the interface between physical radio channel and MAC sub layers

(802.15.4)

TX and RX timing

Timing of transmitter and receiver modem initial state is transition from standby mode to TX

and RX mode through the built in sequencer. Desired mode is programmer as idle to transmit

or receiver after that it will go sleep state. Internal sequencer act in changing the current.

Voltage controlled oscillator automatically the frequency change. PLL Ts- settling time de-

fault settling for the Si dk board is 100µs. Total of time required for PLL To, CAL and T s is

200µs. (PLL, CAL is skipped to increase the response time).

XTAL Settling

time PLL T

o

PLL T

s

PR

E P

A

RA

MP

PR

E

PR

AM

P U

P

TX packet

PA

RA

MP

D

OW

N

Figure 5-7 Transmitter timinings [6]

Receiver mode timing: Rx

XTAL Settling time

PLL T

o

PLL T

s

RX packet

Figure 5-8 Receiver packet timings [6]

Proprietary protocol stack is mentioned below it has physical, MAC (Medium access control).

550 µs

550 µs



42

Figure 5-9 Protocol Architecture layer diagram

Physical layer: Defines a relationship between the hardware device and physical medium. It

initiates the sending and receiving data on carrier.

MAC (Medium Access control) layer: Detect and avoid packet collisions, assist in addressing

mechanism and automatic acknowledgment.

Network layer: end to end packet delivery is taken care by this layer from source to destina-

tion and it enables the packet forwarding feature this feature is limited for four nodes in the

Si-DK ISM radio.

Structure of protocol stack at functional basis:

Figure 5-10 Protocol Architecture Block Diagram

SPI protocol can be used to give external interrupt to the device and this can be used while

integrating RFID reader to the Orienteering device Protocol should be written in function pro-

totype or giving SPI commands from the interrupt of RFID reader to the Si 1000/1004.

Proprietray protocol stack

Physical layer

MAC layer

Application layer

Physical

Network layer

MAC

Orienteering stack –Rest two layers are added.

Application layer controls the communication by making

calls in to the EZMacPro (Proprietary stack)

Application functions call the MAC layer that controls the

interface of Si1000/1004 and the upper application layer

EZMacPro firmware calls the SPI read and writes routines to access the registers and the FIFOs of

si1000/4.



43

Figure 5-11 Functional Diagram of the stack

Implemented and written the code for the application layer, it has following features

Figure 5-12 Applications enabled and defined on the protocol

5.2.1 Listen Before Talk

LBT (Listen before Talk) is a feature which prevents packet transmission if the channel is

already being used by another to avoid a collision of packets. LBT is a configurable and easi-

ly set to deploy in proprietary protocols and ETSI standards [4].

Frequency Programming

(ISM band 915/434MHz)

TX, RX (Bi-directional)

Four channel is used

Extended Packet Format

Packet Forwading

Low battery detection

Extended header byte and con-trol byte

Packed forwarding

Automatic acknowledgment

MCU

Application layer

Proprietary stack

SPI

Si1000/1004



44

1. Feature of the LBT and the stack enables the receiver and listens to the channel for

0.5ms. If the channel remains unoccupied by other channel by stack protocol contin-

ues to listen to channel for an additional 4.5ms. If the channel remains free for 5.0ms

period, protocol implemented in this application send the packet. Strength of incoming

signal is determined by using RSSI. In some cases channel becomes busy in last 4.5ms

will jump to additional pseudo random time range and resolution are configurable.

2. If the channel is busy during 0.5ms stack implemented in this protocol check the RSSI

every 1ms until RSSI less than threshold or a total 10ms expires.

Figure 5-13 LBT Flowchart

Initating of LBT (Start)

Listen 0.5ms

No Yes

Channel

is free Lisen 0.5ms Lisen 0.5ms

Yes

Yes

Yes SEND packet Channel

is free

No

1ms

listen

oer

Channel

is free Yes Listen

5ms+Random

No

Channel

is free Yes SEND packet

No

No Max

number CHANNEL BUSY

ERROR



45

3. Pseudo random time is configured using this formula

TPS = n x LBTI [6:0]

Therefore n is random number from 0 to 15 and LBTI is the listen before talk interval

register. LBTI register is enabled by bit rate (1 to 127 bytes intervals) or fixed inter-

vals as (100us to 12.7ms).

4. RSSI is less than the threshold during the pseudo random and fixed listen time then it

will send the packet. If RSSI level is above threshold the radio stack repeats the listen

before talk mechanism. Maximum limit is set at program and it will wait for a channel

to be free and it will send the packet. LBT is implemented only during packet transfer-

ring not for the acknowledgment.

5.2.2 Packet Forwarding

Packet forwarding function is implemented in the stack for coverage of long distance. Packet

forwarding features in this stack which enables the radio to retransmission of a packet to the

destination node. This makes the node to retransmit of a packet even due to any failure and

packet reach its destination-ID node via multiple nodes.

After using this function at stack and implementing it on orienteering device which increases

the range of radio coverage network.

Radius is the term how many times packets can be retransmitted. For packet forwarding it

should adhere to this

1. Radius field should not be zero

2. Setting the self ID and destination address both are not similar.

Node receives the entire packet and decreases the radius by 1. This function inform to the

callback function to next higher level. Before the packet forward, MAC retransmits the packet

if the radius is zero nodes do not forward the packet. Packet forwarding enables circulating of

packet in network.

Limitation in proprietary stack radius maximum limit is 3.

All packets are identified by the sender ID and the sequence number this helps to avoid re-

transmission of previously forwarded packet with a lower radius. Sender ID is unique and all

nodes store the information about packet sequence number, channel number for the received

packets. (FORWARDED_PACKET_TABLE_SIZE).

Higher software stack interact with this table. Higher software

After packet forwarding it makes a new entry in the forwarding table the entries are Sender

ID, sequence number of the packet. Oldest entry is replaced with new entry.



46

Destination address is set on the packet forwarding to the only one receiving node so that it

will reach its destination receiver node via multiple nodes.

The entire message is forwarded on the same frequency channel.

When a packet is received state machine decides the next process.

1. After packet sent to receiver node, it enables all the active packet filters and checks the

packet and if it passes it notify the packet reception

2. If the packet reach to different node receiver forwards the packet to destination.

Control Byte (CTRL)

Bit7 Bit6 Bit5 Bit4 Bit3 Bit2 Bit1 Bit0

Seq[7:4] ACK ACKQR RAD[1:0] Table 5-1 Packet Forwarding control byte

5.2.3 Automatic Acknowledgement

Automatic acknowledgment is the feedback from the receiver to the transmitter. Feedback is

about to ensure the packet is transferred to the destination. If the receiver node receives the

packet it is addressed as ACKRQ bit set, this bit generates the acknowledgment message and

sends it back to the transmitter node [4].

Signal strength level indication:

EZRadioPRO radio strength can be determined by RSSI level (receiver signal strength) this

function is used to note the current consumption. Application layer monitor the RSSI level

during packet reception and if the signal strength is higher it will notify. RSSI register holds

the information of the radio signal strength and this allow transmit operation to use less pow-

er.

Table 5-2 Automatic Acknowledgment control byte

Control Byte (CTRL)

Bit7 Bit6 Bit5 Bit4 Bit3 Bit2 Bit1 Bit0

Seq[7:4] ACK ACKQR RAD[1:0]

Permeable Sync ACK

set

CID DID SID PL 0x00 CRC

5.2.4 Low battery detection:

LBD feature in stack which is used to measure the battery life and it will notify if the battery

power is not sufficient enough to drive radio. This protocol stack monitor the power supply

voltage of radio using built in low battery detects circuit.

It measures the provided power supply voltage of a radio as 5bit digital number (VBAT

[4:0]).



47

Formula used to detect the low power is

Vsupply = (1.675+ VBAT [4:0] x 50mV) +25mv

Threshold voltage is set by using the formula:

Vthreshold = (1.675+ LBDT [4:0] x 50mv) +25mv

If the power supply goes below the threshold, it will call this function

5.2.5 Packet format

Payload varies from 1 to 7 bytes, however the actual packet sent by program is more than this

because it contains preamble, synchronous word, IDs and CRC.

Figure 5-14 Packet Data Format

Header can be configured in a program by enabling the register settings. Four headers for the

four nodes can be configured and Rx will expect the configured header it won’t accept other

packets with invalid header.

Associated request for the header 0x11 sent by node1 it contains 16 bit random address.

Data 0x11 sent from the node it contains battery voltage data and button data fields

11

A1 A2 01 00

APP

type

HW

type Address Assc

Req

2bytes 1byte 1byte 1byte

AA

AA

2D AA AA D4 CID SID DID PL D0

D1 .................. Dn CRC

Payload

CTRL



48

5.2.6 Receiving data:

During the transmission and receiving process the packets are sent only to the supported

channel. Receiver node repeatedly scans the channel using receiver signal strength. Permeable

is used to synchronize the PLLs for transmission

Figure 5-15 Receiving Data Format

Sync data is the one which initiates the packet reception, header defines the low layer

control and addressing.

Control (CTRL) auto-acknowledgement and packet forwarding

Customer ID (CID) avoids unexpected interactions between systems installed in close

proximity.

Sender ID (SID)—identify transmitting node address

Destination ID (DID)—identifies the receiving node address

Payload length (PL)—number of bytes in the payload (maximum 64 bytes)

AA

AA

2D AA AA D4 CTRL CID SID DID PL D0

D1 .................. Dn CRC

AA

AA


D1 .................. Dn CRC

Permeable Bytes Sync Bytes

TX

RSSI

RX

Scan frequency Chanels F0

F1

F2

F3

Centre

Frequecny

Payload

11

A1 A2 01 B1

Button HW

type

Address Data

2bytes 1byte 1byte 1byte

00

1byte

Battery



49

5.2.7 Packet configuration:

Name Description Size[Bytes]

AA AA AAAA Preamble Min.4

2D D4 Synchron pattern 2

CTRL Control byte 1

CID Customer ID 1

SID Sender ID 1

DID Destination ID 1

PL Payload length 1

D0...DN Data bytes 0….64

CRC Cyclic Redundancy Code 2 Table 5-3 Packet Configuration [11]

Operating mode of the Radio

Mode

name

Circuit Blocks

Register

status

SPI 32kHz AUX 30MHz

XTAL

PLL PA RX

Shut

down

OFF OFF OFF OFF OFF OFF OFF

Standby

ON

ON OFF OFF OFF OFF OFF OFF

Sleep ON OFF OFF OFF OFF OFF OFF

Sensor ON ON x OFF OFF OFF OFF

Ready ON x ON OFF OFF OFF OFF

Tuning ON x x ON ON OFF OFF

Transmit ON x x ON ON ON OFF

Receive ON x x ON ON OFF ON Table 5-4 Operating mode of the device [11]

Operating mode control:

Transceiver used in this application and project to build mesh application for orien-

teering has four primary states they are shutdown, idle, TX and RX. Shutdown states

completely minimize the current usage by shutting down. Shut down (SDN) pin 20 is

controlled via programming. RX and TX will reach automatically any one of the state

from IDLE mode. Transceiver is integrated with digital regulated supply (LPLDO)

which is internally connected in parallel to digital regulator. Common digital supply

voltage is connected to all digital circuit blocks and digital modem. LPLDO is very

less current consumption and limited current supply capability and can be used only

during IDLE-STANDBY and IDLE-SLEEP modes.



50

Figure 5-16 Device Working State Diagram

SLEEP MODE:

After MCU and radio are initialized, stack in SLEEP mode. In this mode Radio is

completely switched off and consumes less current (1uA). Radio will wake up 1ms

before transmission or reception. This time is to crystal oscillator to achieve stability.

IDLE MODE:

From sleep mode it will go IDLE mode after the function called in stack it switches to

IDLE mode. In this mode it will wait for the commands, all RF blocks are disable but

crystal oscillator runs in radio. Current consumption of radio 0.6mA, protocol stack

remains in an idle mode unless it receives the information to switch as transmitter or

receiver.

TRANSMIT MODE:

At transmission mode data to be sent to destination address is loaded with appropriate

register all these process done at sleep mode. Once transmit command is sent, radio

will start transmitting and listen before talk will be performed before every packet

transmission.

Automatic acknowledgment wait for the acknowledgment, if the packets arrive within

timeout period, stack goes automatically in next selected state, transmit or receive.

If it arrives after timeout it will show error no acknowledgment and resends the pack-

et.

Two transmitting mode is implemented in two methods one is without feedback and

other one is feedback. Later one consumes more power than feedback features.

SHUTDOWN

IDLE

RX TX



51

If one channel is received the packet from transmitter node it won’t wait for feedback.

In other feature is acknowledgment from the receiver node. While during the transmis-

sion if the node doesn’t receive the acknowledgment it will retransmits the packet it

used more current compare to no feedback features.

Receive Mode:

From Idle mode it will give to receive mode, protocol stack search for frequency set

(915/434MHz) for a valid data transmission. If a valid data packet has been received

and it checks all the error detection, address filter, then MAC switch to power saving

mode and wait for upper layer to read the data from buffer. Once the data has been

read software goes into any one of the selection mode idle, receive or sleep.

5.2.8 Packet Forwarding

Packet forwarding feature is used to retransmit the data for a long distance so that I

will cover the wide range. For each packet forwarding it decreases the radius by 1 and

performs the listen before talk. It will check for the free availability of a channel for

sending the packet. Node repeats the listen before talk till retry time declared in soft-

ware stack. If node fails to forward the packet, it will repeat to the maximum number

defined in the stack then it will retry and go back automatically to receiver state.

5.2.9 Packet Filtering

Packet filtering works in real time operation. When the packet header is received, filter

check the header bytes, if any bytes are corrupted on header receiving packet will be

stopped. This feature helps to prevent or ignore the unexpected invalid at an early

stage itself. After the abortion reception it will keep on searching for valid packets.

Real time packet filtering increase the performance of a networking system by ignor-

ing invalid packets during the process and saves process power.

Customer ID Filter:

CID is a unique ID and this avoids the interrupted interaction between different sys-

tems. It transmits after permeable and synchron pattern. Networking reception system

can recognize the packet if it is coming from right device or else it will cancel the re-

ception for invalid CID.

Sender ID Filter:

It will filter the incoming packet data by verifying the sender ID field at the receiver

header packet. Sender ID field is enabled as registers and it only accepts the packets

from only specific nodes or group of nodes

Sender ID filter registration at application layer



52

SMSK 0xFF. SMSK is a register used to mask the bits. Packets will pass the filter if

SFLT & SMSK ==SID & SMSK

Destination Filter:

This filter consists of three address filters and all these address are tested by received

packet. They are self address filter, multicast address filter and broadcast address fil-

ter.

Self Address Filter:

Self address (SFID) is also a unique ID for a node. Each node has the unique SFID

and this identified as SFID. It passes only to those packets whose DID field in the

header equals SFID will pass the self address filter.

Figure 5-17 Packet Filtering method

AA

AA


D1 .................. Dn CRC

Payload

CID Filter

Broadcast filter

Packet length fitler

Sender Filter

Multicast Filter

Self Address filter

CID

PLMAX

MCR

SFID

MCA

A/nM

SFLT, SMSK

CRC

Filter

Packet

CFEN

SFEN

PREN

DFEN

MCFEN

PLFEN



53

Sleep

Wake Up

Idle

frequency

search

Packet

Receive

Packet

Forwarding ACK TX ?

ACK

transmit

SATX

Packet is valid

LBT Error

ACK RX

Error

Waiting for

ACK

Packet TX

Listen before talk

SATX

ACK

received?

RX ACK?

LBTEN

?

Multicast Address Filter:

It verifies whether a packet is from group of nodes and thus the received packet is a

member of group.

Broadcast Address Filter:

It is a special address 0xFF, packets with this address on the DID field only pass the

broadcast filter.

CRC Filter: It performs the cyclic redundancy check on all the received packets in-

cluding the packet header



54

Figure 5-18 Flowchart of TRX Device at various modes

5.3 Transmission and reception Operations:

This is the simple P2P communication it transmits the data and received by RX. RX is the

multiple receiver nodes it can receive 64 byte packet data it’s enabled with mesh network.

Flow chart: Transmission node

Figure 5-19 Transmit mode

Receiver node

Figure 5-20 Receiver mode

Snippets of code:

void main (void)

Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan(KTH) Final Report Royal Institute of Technology 8/29/2011

55

{

U8 length;

U8 BUFFER_MSPACE payload[7] = {1,2,3,4,5,6,7};

PCA0MD &= ~0x40; // disable F930 watchdog

MCU_Init();

EA = 1; // enable global interrupts

while(1)

{

//if ( PB1 == 0) // PB1 designates reciever

SFID = 1

if (SW2 == 0)

{

while( SW2 == 0 );

LED1 = 0; // LED 1 indicates receiver

//Set Self ID

EZMacPRO_Reg_Write(SFID, 0x01);

EZMacPRO_Receive();

}

if ( PB2 == 0 ) // PB2 designates reciever

SFID = 2

{

while( PB2 == 0 );

//Set Self ID

EZMacPRO_Reg_Write(SFID, 0x02);

while(1)

{

if ( PB2 == 0 )

{

while( PB2 == 0 );

LED2 = 0; // LED 2 indicates

transmitter

EZMacPRO_Reg_Write(DID, 0x01); //Set

Destination ID

EZMacPRO_Reg_Write(PLEN, 7);

length = 7;

EZMacPRO_TxBuf_Write(length, &payload[0]);

//write the packet length and payload to the TX buffer

EZMacPRO_Transmit();

//send the packet

This is SPI initialization

// Init SPI

SPI_CFG = 0x40; // master mode

SPI_CN = 0x00; // 3 wire master mode

SPI_CKR = SPI_CKR_VALUE; // initialize SPI prescaler

SPI_CN |= 0x01; // enable SPI

NSS = 1; // set NSS high

Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan(KTH) Final Report Royal Institute of Technology 8/29/2011

56

5.4 Flow chart of the mesh networking operation:

Normal transmitter and receiver operation code is implemented with standard C and other

implementation is the mesh with the following three operations they are transmitter, receiver

and packet forwarding. Below mentioned flowchart is the mesh enabled features with packet

forwarding to the 4 nodes.

Transmitter node:

Figure 5-21 Transmitter Node

Later the initialization of HW

peripherals of the MCU and the

proprietary stack and the initiali-

zation of TRX IC and it will in-

itialize the function P2P in pro-

gram after that node goes to

sleep mode and wakes up in

every second for the low fre-

quency timer (LFT). LFT is a

part of feature of the stack and

use the wake up timer of the

TRX IC. It is configured in regis-

ter settings. Operation of the Tx

node is show below.

Program: Tx

void vP2P_TxRun()

// Tx node function

{

U16 wWaitCnt;

EZMacPRO_Wake_Up();

// wake up from

Sleep mode

while(EZMacProReg.name.MSR!=EZMAC_PRO_IDLE); // wait

until the stack goes to Idle mode

LED1 = 0;

// blink the LED

EZMacPRO_Reg_Write(DID, 0x01); // set Desti-

nation ID

bPacketLength = 5;

// set packet

length

wPacketCounter++;

// in-

crease packet number

Power up

Intializating TRX

Start LFT Sleep mode

LFT expired?

Stop LFT transmit mode

Transmit data

N Y



57

sprintf(abRfPayload,"%1u",wPacketCounter); // set up

packet

Forward node: Figure 5-22 Forwarding Mode

Forward node goes to sleep mode it

changes the receiver and transmit node as

packet arrives #define PACK-

ET_FORWARDING_SUPPORTED. Op-

eration of the Fwd is show at the Figure 4-

20. Node automatically forward all the

packet and payload is 16 bit number

representing the number of transmitted

packet. Rx buffer read similar to Rx node

operation.

When a packet is forwarded it sets the

flag high in callback function.

// Fwd node initialization

{

wPacketCounter = 0;

// initial value of

number of packets

memcpy(&abRfPayload[0]," ",6);

// clear content of the packet payload

EZMacPRO_Reg_Write(MCR, 0xAC);

// Set data rate to 9.6kbps, DNPL = 1, used 1 channel

EZMacPRO_Reg_Write(SECR, 0x60); // State after

receive is RX state and state after transmit is Idle state

EZMacPRO_Reg_Write(TCR, 0xB8);

// LBT Before Talk enabled, Output power: +20 dBm, no ACK,

AFC disable

// set the used frequency channel

EZMacPRO_Reg_Write(SCID, CUSTOMER_ID);

// set the customer ID to 0x01

EZMacPRO_Reg_Write(SFID, DEVICE_SELF_ID);

// set the self ID

Receiver Node: After the power up, Rx node initialize the MCU and the stack finally the RX node P2P. Node

will be in receiving mode until the first packet arrives. Node goes to sleep mode for about

850ms due to LFT setting and it’s configurable

Power up

Intializating TRX

Fwd node

Packet arrived?

Fwd node N Y



58

Figure 5-23 Receiver Node Flowchart

void main (void)

{

PCA0MD &= ~0x40;

// disable F930 watchdog

MCU_Init();

EA = 1;

// enable

global interrupts

EZMacPRO_Init();

vP2P_RxInit();

// Point to point in-

itialaization

while (!fFirstPack-

etArrived)

// wait for

packet in receive mode until the

first packet arrives

{

vP2P_RxRun();

// check for packet

}

while(1)

{

if(fLFTexpired == 1) // if LFT

expired wait for a new packet

{

fLFTexpired = 0; // clear the flag

EZMacPRO_Reg_Write(LFTMR2, 0x44); // disable LFT, use the In-

ternal Time Base

fWaitForPacket = 1; // wait until a new packet arrives

while (fWaitForPacket)

{vP2P_RxRun(); // check if there is a new packet

}

EZMacPRO_Reg_Write(LFTMR2, 0xC4); // enable LFT, use the Inter-

nal Time Base

}

5.5 Transmitter power levels:

EIRP: Effective Isotropic Radiated power, the regulatory level of output power sometimes

rated in actual transmitter power or in some cases effective power based on both transmitter

and antenna values is called EIRP. This is the effective power radiated from the antenna.

Intializating TRX

Start LFT Sleep mode

LFT expired?

Stop LFT transmit mode

N Y

Power up

Receive mode

First Packet

arrived?

N

Packet

arrived



59

It includes any losses for cable, lightning arrestors and any other device placed between

the antenna and transmitter connector. Isotropic gain of antenna is in dBi rating.

Transmitter with 100mW output power is (+20dBm)

Yagi antenna with a 13.5 dBi gain rating.

ETSI Regulatory power –Levels (make a good graph of this table)

Country Frequency Band

(GHz)

Maximum

Transmit Power

EIRP with

TPC(mW)

Maximum

Transmit power

without TPC

(mW)

Austria 5.155.25 200 200

Belgium 5.155.35 120 60

Denmark 5.155.25 50 50

France 5.155.25 200 200

Germany 5.155.25 50 50

Ireland 5.155.25 120 60

Netherland 5.155.25 200 200

Sweden 5.155.25 200 200

Switzerland 5.155.25 200 200

United Kingdom 5.155.35 120 60 Table 5-5 ETSI Regulatory Power Levels [8]

Chart 5-1 Qualitative analysis of ETSI Power Level

0

50

100

150

200

250

ETSI Regualtory level

Frequecny Band (GHz)

Max Tx power EIRP with TPC(mW)

Max Tx power EIRP without TPC(mW)



60

Chart is plotted from the table 4-9, in x-axis different countries and other hand on y-

axis Power (mW).

5.6 Modulation type used

Two different types of modulation is used and tested with the Hw device they are GFSK

and FSK, GFSK is preferable.

GFSK – Gaussian Frequency Shift keying, it works similar to FSK in addition all data

bits are filtered by Gaussian filter. It diminishes the sharp edges of Tx bits outcome is nar-

row bandwidth [27].

Above diagram represents the modulation spectrum between GFSK and FSK.

GFSK modulation type is set by enabling the register settings at stack. Reason to prefer the

GFSK over FSK is due to robust link. FSK performance is depends upon the crystal

TXCO.

FSK – Frequency Shift keying is a digital frequency modulation method. In which infor-

mation is transmitted as discrete frequency as carrier wave. FSK, changes the frequency of

a signal while transmitting the digital data. Continuous wave signal is transmitted without

modulation of the signal on centre frequency. For sending 0 bit continuous wave signal

frequency is changed and decremented as .

- is centre frequency, is change in frequency called deviation.

For sending 1 bit data it results to increase in normal carrier frequency.



61

6. Antenna

This section is about the antenna type used in the project and different types of antennas are

simulated for the better performance and there numerical data’s are mentioned below. Two

different types of antenna are used in this project they are RF switch and direct tie method.

RF switch antenna, switch from Tx and Rx. Whereas, direct tie method reduces the switch

timing between Tx and Rx. Antenna type used in this project is whip antenna attached with Si

DK, whip antenna is good at 2d range and at close proximity it provides good coverage where

as in case of 3d not good coverage.

Effects of antenna direction is mention in the below diagram which clearly depicts the role of

antenna direction how vital rather transmitter getting masked.

Whip antenna coverage area. In a flat surface or indoor this is the radiation pattern of an antenna.

Figure 6-1 Radiation Pattern Vertical position

Whip antenna coverage area in horizontal direction.

Figure 6-2Horizontal Position

Diversity antenna is to overcome the multipath fading or multipath distortion. Two identical

antennas can be used to increase receiving sensitivity. Antennas are classified as directional

and Omni-directional. Antenna which transmits and receives in all direction is called Omni-

directional. Directional antenna transmits and receives alone a limited number of vectors.

More about antenna diversity is briefly explained at [6.2]

6.1 Attenuation from trees

Trees are significant source of path loss numerous factors for this cause is wet or dry tree,

deciduous trees, whether the leaves are present or not. Densely covered trees will be a prob-

lem. Attenuation is depends on the distance the signal must penetrate through the trees the

attenuation is of the order of 0.05 dB/m at 200 MHz, 0.1 dB/m at 500 MHz, 0.2 dB/m at 1

GHz, 0.3 dB/m at 2 GHz and 0.4 dB/m at 3 GHz. For lower frequency attenuation is lower

for horizontal polarization that vertical [9].



62

Multipath distortion is a RF interference that can occur when a radio signal has more than

one path between transmitting and receiving antennas.

Probability for more multipath fading is using near to steel mills, manufacturing area, air-

port, distribution centre, metal walls, Ceilings, shelves or other metallic things in between

receiver and transmitter. Metals reflect the RF signal so it creates multipath condition

Figure 6-3 Multiple path fading.

Antenna starts transmitting means it radiates RF energy in more than one definite di-

rection. This may cause RF signal to move between the transmitting and receiving an-

tenna in the most desired path reflecting or bouncing from metallic and other reflective

surfaces. The phenomenon of reflecting the RF waves will cause reflected wave to

travel farther than the desired direct wave. It may cause delay in receiving the data and

then due to long range transmission route reflected signal loses more RF energy as a

result of reflection or bounce. Finally all the reflected and bounced waves combined

and cause distorting in the desired RF signal.

Changing the location of antenna change these reflections and reduces the chance of

multipath interference. In some scenario, received signals are in an equal strength, yet

delayed in such a manner that they are opposite in polarity, they cancel each other

completely, creating a total absence of received signal by receiver this is known as

multipath null.

6.2 Antenna Diversity

Diversity antenna includes two

antennas that are connected to

RF switch. According to signal

strength receiver switches be-

tween the two antennas on a

regular basis and listens for a

valid signal.

Tx Rx

Obstruction

Time

Time

Signal

Strength

Received Signals Combined Results

Receiver

Circuits

Antenna 1 Antenna 2

Antenna

Switch Control

Circuits



63

Figure 6-4 RF Switch Antenna

Antenna design: To improve the effective RF range of the device. Antenna is one of

the simpler ways to refine the performance of Radio.

I have performed a qualitative research on antenna design for the future work imple-

mentation to increase the RF range dramatically. Factors which affect range of antenna

are mentioned in this diagram.

Figure 6-5 Factors affecting the antenna

The main factors of the antenna design are gain, direction and polarization.

Gain is defined as the measure of increase in power. Direction is shape of transmission

pattern and the polarization the angle at which energy is emitted into the air. These

three factors are explained in detail.

Gain: Gain is an amount of increase in energy that an antenna will add energy to RF

signal.

Antenna gain is rated and compared with an isotropic or dipole antenna. Isotropic an-

tenna is a theoretical antenna with uniform three dimensional radiation patterns. Iso-

tropic antenna power rating is 0 dBi that is zero gain/loss. Dipole antennas are in-

contrast to isotropic antenna they are physical antennas used on many WLAN. Radia-

tion pattern of dipole antenna is different from isotropic antenna, where as the radia-

tion pattern of dipole antenna is 360 degrees in the horizontal plane and generally 75

degrees in vertical plane dipole antenna is standing vertically. Dipole antennas have a

gain of 2.14dBi compared to an isotropic antenna.

Direct TX/RX switch configuration is used for the low power configuration.

Antenna diversity support can increase the transceiver system link budget 8-10dB in

the presence of this fading condition result in substantial increase in range.

Antenna Diversity Hardware with RF Switch method for the frequency 915MHz

Antenna

Direction

Gain Polarization



64

Figure 6-6 Antenna Diversity Hardware Design

6.3 RSSI level to qualify antenna selection

Figure 6-7 RSSI Level

Radiation pattern of the general dipole antenna is show at Figure 4-21

Directional Properties: apart from isotropic antenna other antenna has radiation pat-

tern because isotropic antenna is theoretical ideal antenna which radiates equally in all

RSSI1

RSSI2

Antenna

Selection

permeable Sync

Word Data



65

direction. Beam width is antenna gain coverage area and it’s inversely proportional to

antenna gain. Antenna gain increases and the beam width usually go down.

Omni-Directional Antennas: This kind of antenna is designed to give 360 degree radi-

ation pattern, usually the horizontal plane. Usually this type of antenna is used in cov-

erage in all directions surrounding the antennas on that one plane is required.

Advantages: Long range communications distance. Certain cases gain of the antenna

is very high and.

Drawbacks: Loss of coverage in certain areas. Radiation patterns will be small even a

small motions of the antenna example wind can cause the signal to move away from

the intended target and lose communication and difficult to use Omni-directional an-

tenna in mobile and portable environment.

Polarization: In RF radiations two planes are used they are E and H plane. E is the

electric field defines the orientation of radio waves as they are radiated from the an-

tenna. E is perpendicular Earth’s surface it is knows as vertically polarized. Omni-

directional antenna is vertically polarized antenna.

The horizontal polarized or linear antennas electric fields are parallel to the Earth’s

surface. WLANs rarely use horizontally polarized antennas apart from certain out-

doors, P2P system.

The parameter strictly prohibited is the transmitting power that is permitted from a

WLAN radio transmitter.

6.4 Wave Equation for the future antenna design for better performance

The waves radiated from the antenna obey the Maxwell equation.

Under the assumption of uniform isotropic antenna the equation 1 and 2 will be

With electrical charges

Wave equations are difficult to solve in general, because of the presence of the terms with

current and charge. It is easier to use the magnetic vector potential and the electric scalar

potential.

Magnetic vector potential is , the wave equation for the electrical scalar poten-

tial is



66

Wave equations are inhomogeneous Helmholtz equations is suitable for the region where

currents and charges are not zero.

At large distance expression for the far field is

At sufficient distance from the antenna radiated fields are perpendicular to each other and

direction of propagation. The magnetic field and electric field are in phase and these are

the properties of uniform plane waves.

The main difference with uniform plane wave is

Surface of constant phase are spherical instead of planar and the waves travels in the

radial direction.

Spherical wave resemble a plane wave with ( ).

Figure 6-8 Spherical Wave

Directivity of antenna is measured in terms =

max {D ( }

It gives the measurement of antenna perfor-

mance in the direction of maximum radiation

related to isotropic antenna.

Dipole far field expressions

And the time average pointing vector is



67

6.5 Radiation patterns:

Figure 6-9 Radiation Pattern of Electric and Magnet Field

6.5.1 What is the purpose of directional antenna?

Directional antenna fitted to the receiver will receive signal from the transmitter which is

aligned in a direction within a vector of good line of sight to the directional properties of the

antenna. Transmitters which are positioned outside the directional vector line of sight it will

be masked from the receiver.

Transmitter with directional antenna radiates its energy in predefined direction rather than

distributing its energy in all direction which cause the reduction in coverage range.

6.5.2 Simulated Antenna Radiation Plot

Antenna radiation plot comes in polar plane plots and E plane plots. E plot provides brief

information but the direction or pattern shape is not as clear from a polar plot. Polar plot is

similar to compass easier to analyze the antenna gain in any given direction.

Linear antenna simulation result:

Simple far field analysis: Linear Dipole

antenna.

This is the simulated result for the dipole an-

tenna for the frequency 434 MHz in the E-H

field and power and other diagram 90 degree

is the position of the antenna.

Radiated power = 5.2593w = 37.2dBm

Radiation Resistance=6.224025

Directivity=1.5151722, Maximum current

=1.3A

X

Z

Electric and magnetic

field

Plane containing the an-

tenna proportional to

Plane perpendicular to

antenna Omni-directional

or isotropic.



68

Dipole length for one sided is 0.164m and double sided 0.329m

Figure 6-10 Radiation pattern of E and H Power Radiation Pattern

Detailed Analysis of linear dipole antenna

Figure 6-11 434MHz Linear dipole Simulation Result

Due to its length, current flowing in antenna wire

is function of coordinate z. this figure is the simu-

lated linear dipole antenna length for the frequen-

cy-434MHz.

Simulated result of the Scan field and power

Figure 6-12 434MHz Scan field and power



69

Angle reference:

Figure 6-13 434MHz Angle reference

Calculated value for the 915MHz

Radiated power = 0.6370191 = 28.04dBm

Radiation Resistance=1.2740382 resistance

Directivity=1.503168

Dipole length for one sided is 0.078m and double sided 0.156m

Maximum current =1.3A



70

7. Field testing and Analysis of the data

First approach to test the prototype is made from functional and performance point of view.

Different types of test are performed at field at various terrain lands at free space, buildings, at

trees and bushes. Each functional blocks area tested while programming and implemented at

the nodes.

Initial phase of testing the TRX with the spectrum analyzer, transmitted the GFSK signal with

the carrier frequency of 915MHz can be seen in the below picture and I am able to generate

the different frequencies by changing the register settings and the output is seen on spectrum

analyzer.

7.1 Testing the hardware device

Analysis of the result

Parameters for setting the spectrum Analyzer

Ref: 20dBm, RBW: 10 KHz, VBW: 30KHZ, SWT 20ms. Centre frequency is at 913MHz

Device position at 100m in closed space even inside the buildings is 100% packet sent there is

no losses in packet. I transferred the data by a button press then I verified the receiving data

via terminal with the baud rate 115200. Till 500m the device output is ideal at free space



71

when I go beyond 500m, verified the packet loss and after adjusting the direction of Tx anten-

na I tested hardware device is able to receive another additional two Tx packet compare to the

normal one. Below graph x- axis is the number of packet sent and in Y-axis it’s the field test

distance at various distance from 100 to 550meters.

Pie chart which explains about the factors which affected the antenna range, because I am

working on the DK and the antenna came along with is a whip antenna for testing purpose.

Field test of the device is performed at open space free terrain land. These are the factors

which affected the antenna radiation which made 500meter as possible range of coverage.

7.2 Factors affecting the coverage

Various factors are listed below in pie chart by testing the device in normal open environment

and forest terrain lands. Major disturbance is due to highly densely trees and hill area it leads

to multipath and the numbers are not the exact losses it is an approximate assumption and it

may vary while using diversity antenna or dipole.

At 100m 250m 500m 750m

Packet transmitted 10 10 10 10

Packet received 10 10 10 10

Data lost 0 0 0 0

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

Nu

mb

er

of

pac

ket

sen

t

Histogram of Analyzed data

Environmental factors

50%

Hills, Water 20%

Internal Device 10%

Antenna 20%

Factor Affecting the Coverage



72

Environmental factors are trees, wet trees, highly density tree, metals and any other reflective

materials between the path of transmitter and receiver.

Hills, cliff are the second contributor in diminishing the range of RF, then internal device is-

sues due to improve handling and loading the data and last antenna. Increasing the gain of the

antenna or using diversity antenna for good reception.

Packets received at terminal

Print screen of 64bytes packet received is show below and each bit data can be written

according to the needs using external interrupt or RFID reader for unique identification and

timestamp of the interrupt push button or RFID reader.

7.3 Serial Port Programming Software

Timer has been created from the software and the timestamp of each interrupt is displayed and

analyzed this is interpreted as the competitors timestamp and synchronization of time at every

node.



73

I have written the Serial port program in C#.NET. Picture shown below is the serial port soft-

ware diagram and the code is attached at APPENDIX

Time stamp can be seen which is the system time and the date from button interrupt. Below

mention diagram in which NFC reader receives the embedded information from the tag stick

behind the map and the output will be the orienteer name, location and other information. This

the output result received while integrated the NFC device this is additional work apart from

thesis objectives.

Timestamp



74

8. Battery life Estimation

8.1 AA Battery:

8.2 AAA Battery

Life of the SI labs device si1000 is estimated with the minimum supply voltage 1.3v and the

estimated battery life for AAA will last for 7 years. All three possible combination of AAA

battery is estimated with a single, parallel and series.



75

Simulated results for three different types

of connection of the battery device is seen

in the figure. As single connection, parallel

and serier connection.

Where as in series connection of the battery

it is clear that the life of battery is more

compared to other two connections.

8.3 Continuous Operation (25MIPS) for the AAA Battery:

25 MIPS, 100% CPU

Utilization

Using internal 24.5 MHz

Precision Oscillator



76

Connection Estimated Ca-

pacity (mAh)

Average Cur-

rent

µA

Self Dis-

charge Cur-

rent

µA

Estimated System

operating times

days

Single 1200.000 5657.226 3.910 6.935

Parallel 2400.000 5657.226 7820 13.870

Series 1200.000 4100.00 3.910 12.410

8.4 Lithium battery AAA: 15 years 19100

Lithium AA: 15 yrs

Coin cell: Single in series. 3.909 years



77

9. Future work

This section explains about future work and enhancement of a device, improving performance

of a device and integrating RFID reader. Antenna diversity usage will improve coverage dis-

tance area above 500meters. First part of this section is about RFID functional blocks which

plays vital role for reliable functionality and the second one is about antenna diversity.

9.1 RFID reader System level design

HW device enabled with passive RFID tag and reader target frequency is 13.56MHz. Be-

low diagram is a functional element for the RFID reader for the feature design. Main func-

tional blocks are power supply, clock generator and antenna module with π and T match-

ing.

Figure 9-1 Functional Block of RFID reader design

Clock Generator: Preferred clock generator is to go for low frequency with a limit of 125

KHz square wave. Reason for going lower frequency due to power and many peripherals of

the device don’t need a clock including microcontroller.

Antenna Module: 13.56MHz Antenna with pi or t matching

Filtering Module: Purpose of filters is to remove the unwanted and redundant data. It filters

out the required carrier signal from noises and then filtered data is received by antenna.

Microcontroller: C8051 or any other micro controller can be used and chip does not need

any external clock source it is using one of the internal oscillator to generate its clock.

Power supply Clock Generator (Square wave)

Antenna Module

Simple I/O Microcontroller Filtering Module



78

9.2 Antenna diversity proposal for future use

Antenna diversity is to increase the receiving strength and coverage area of the signal. This is

the hardware diagram for the daughter card radio transceiver can be used for antenna diversity

with different IC from silicon labs si1000/1/2/3/4.

Algorithm for Antenna Diversity:

Antenna mechanism for future use is briefly

explained. Proprietary radio doesn’t rely on the

transmitter and receiver synchronization. It

overcomes the missed packet problem by pe-

riodically switching antennas whether received

signal is below the signal quality (SQ). SQ is

based upon receiver sensitivity, valid signal

threshold and the antenna selection. If the re-

ceiver selects an antenna it will remain it re-

ceivers the entire packet data then it will

switch.

Switching of antenna is frequent enough to catch the packets on one of the antenna rather

being super fast and slow.

Algorithm for measuring the switching of an antenna is based on timer. When it starts goes

to measure signal quality feature.

9.2.1 State diagram of antenna diversity

Figure 9-2 Antenna Diversity State Diagram

This is the algorithm for verifying the signal quality

is the maximum allowed time in part of a given signal is used to select the antenna that is

permeable of packet. N is the number of antennas used by the receiver.

Start RX

Receive Remainder of

packet

Measuring SQ Switching Antenna

SQ<SQth or Timeout

SQ>=SQth



79

While measuring the signal quality (SQ), function SQ is measured first and it compare with

the SQ threshold if it’s below than the DQ threshold level timer times out then the antenna

switches and measure SQ state restarts. In contrast, SQ level is above the threshold level re-

ceiver stays with the selected antenna because of valid signal indication. Sometimes quality is

lesser than the expected level is due to interruption noise prior to arrival of packet.

Once the valid signal quality indicator is generated first time, radio antenna diversity algo-

rithm verifies with other antenna for higher signal quality indication before selecting the an-

tenna with highest signal quality.

In future focus is on permeable to make as short as possible without any compromise on fast

clock bit recovery to increase the battery life.

PQD – (Permeable Quality Detector) is to determine the quality of a signal. If the PQD indi-

cates as invalid permeable or time out, next antenna is selected and receiver will try again to

find a valid permeable. Suppose the valid permeable is found RSSI value is stored and Rx

switches antennas to stored RSSI on other antenna. Always antenna with strong RSSI is se-

lected. RSSI measurements are fast time saving and shorter permeable.

Figure 9-3 RSSI Selection of Antenna

Start RX

Receive Remainder of packet

Measuring PQ Switching Antenna

PQ<PQth or Timeout

PQ>=PQth

Measuring RSSI_1

Measuring RSSI_2

Switch Antenna

Switching to Highest RSSI Ant



80

Figure 9-4 Permeability Strength Antenna Detection

Antenna diversity for the future work is to improve the coverage range and signal strength,

PCB design is a proposed solution and not tested in a lab.

BOM- Bill of material for the devices 915MHz and 434MHz is attached with this project

document at APPENDIX E

Start RX

Receive Remainder of

packet

Measuring PQ1 Switching Antenna

PQ<PQth or Timeout

PQ>=PQth

Measuring RSSI_1

Measuring RSSI_2

Switch Antenna

Switching to Highest

RSSI Ant

Measuring PQ2

PQ

2<

PQ

2th

or

Tim

eout



81

10. Summary

This section is a summary of the entire project work and the milestone achieved. Pro-

posed a solution for the robust and reliable device for orienteering and created the

hardware device creating protocol standards for communication medium. Successfully

I’m able to communication with two nodes and more than three nodes. Successfully,

implemented the protocol standards in the HW device and able to communicate up to

500m with 915MHZ.

Successfully, I accomplished all the tasks in an estimated time by following the itera-

tive project model. What has been achieved in this project is summarized below.

Reached all milestones and tollgates and my entire project works is successful and

meet the needs of the company NEP AB.

Managed the literature studies on Orienteering sports, collected more informa-

tion about the different types of Orienteering, rules and regulation of the sports.

Investigated with Orienteering sports person about the existing technology

used. Gathered more information about different courses of Orienteering for

various age levels.

Investigation on other types of Orienteering performed in and conducted an

analysis and study on existing Orienteering method, using the RFID DIP me-

thod from the SPORTident, and Emit GPS positioning system.

Proposed a robust solution for the hardware design of multi-hop wireless mesh

network. Managed the research on different network topologies like P2P (Peer

to Peer networking), Star network, mesh network, start mesh and tree for the

minimal packet loss in Orienteering application.

Calculate the RF range of Si labs IC at outdoor with four jumps and estimated

the battery life of using SiLabs IC with various types of batteries like AAA,

AA, Lithium batteries and Coin cell.

Status of my progression first, successfully able to communicated with the two

nodes and able to send and received the packets at Si100 DK (Development

Kit). I have contacted the supplier Avnet for the SI1000DK issue in proprietary

protocol EZMacPro. Successfully I’m able to connect DK to the PC. Success-

fully I’m able to transmitted Tx and Received the frequency of 915 MHz and

913 MHz. I have tested the transmitter from the frequency of 913-903Mhz by

fine tuning the oscillator frequency.



82

Successfully managed to communicate with multiple nodes and able to imple-

ment the mesh network in HW device, completed the field testing and pro-

posed the future work to increase the effective coverage may increase the cov-

erage area

Conclusion

Additionally enhancement for future pointed out some improvements on antenna de-

sign and integration of RFID reader in the Hw device.

Each node performance is scalable and customizable. It can be used with other stan-

dard C code application and network topologies. It is easier to connect to the main

nodes and change the modem parameters. GFSK or FSK modulation are selected de-

pends upon the needs. Estimated the bill of material and enclosed with this document

as hard copy. Successfully I’m Able to send and receive packets from multiple nodes

without any packet loss at the distance of 500 meters with 4.8kbps data rate at open

terrain land. In future this byte data is converted into graphical or other data format to

interact with GUI for the display. This device can be widely used in any other tracking

application in the field of medical, finance, retail, sport, and defense.



83



84

APPENDIX A:

FORMULA:

Formula to calculate the receiver power and transmitter power, EIRP and these formulas are

used to estimate theoretical performance of the designed device.

4

2

RXeff GA

120

2

RXRX

ES

RXRX

RXRXeffRXrec GE

GSASP

41204

222

WP

G

sf

s

mc

m

mVE RXSens

RX

RXSens 2

2

1

4801000

10

30

10

dBmP

RXSens

RXSens

WP

1010

dBG

RX

RX

G

24 r

EIRPSRX

m

mVE

WEIRP

E

EIRP

E

EIRPmr

RXSensRXSensRXSens

id

301000

30

4

1202

n

n

nidreal rr

22

2



85

APPENDIX: B Modem parameters

These parameters are changed using the register modem excel calculator sheet. Selecting the

appropriate setting which is required for the needs it displays register values and these values

are set at protocol stack to enable the features.

GFSK: Centre frequency 915MHz and 4.8kbps,

Crystal tolerance [ppm] 20 for both TX and RX

Enter in desired frequency and program the Register Values into the appropriate SPI Registers

Channel spacing most be a multiple of 10 kHz ranging from 10 kHz to 2.55MHz.Channel

number ranges from 0 to 255

Instructions: Enter in desired Data-Rate and program the Register Values into the appropriate

SPI Registers.

RX/TX Car-rier Fre-quency Settings

Application Parameters Center Frequency

IF Frequency

RF Carrier Frequency Fc

[MHz] 915

[kHz] 937.5

[MHz]

915

Register values (HEX)

band select

hbsel fb[4:0] fc[15:0}

75h 75h 76h 77h

1 15 BB80

TX

Data Rate

Settings

Desired Data-

rate

Decimal Value Registers

kbps txdr[15:0] txdr[15:0] txdtrtscale

dec. hex bit

4.8 10066 2752 1

For NEP

TX Frequency Deviation Settings

Desired Deviation

Decimal Value

Register Values

Register commands

KHz fd[8:0] fd[8:0] Reg 72 50

Carrier Frequency WDS COMMANDS

reg.75 75 S2 F575

reg.76 BB S2 F6BB

reg.77 80 S2 F780

TX DATA RATE WDS COMMANDS

reg.6E 27 S2 EE27

reg.6F 52 S2 EF52

reg. 70 24 S2 F024



86

50

dec. 80

hex 050

Reg.71 2B

For Optional modem performance it’s recommended to set the rxosr at least 6.5 or higher.

GFSK/FSK RX Modem Setting

Application Parameters

Modulation Index

Modulation BW

Channel filter BW -3dB

Est. Freq. Tolerance (SingleSided)

Est. RX sens. BER = 1E-3

Rb Fd AFC enable

H 20.83333333

BWmod [kHz] 104.8

BW [kHz] 115.6

[kHz] 40.5

Input Power [dBm] -113

[kbps] [kHz] 1Dh [6]

4.8 50 1

Register values (HEX)

dec exponent

ch filter data rate

clk recovery

Manchester

AFC BW

Limiter fd[8:0]

BCR Gearsh

ift ndec_exp[2:0]

filset[3:0]

dwn3_bypass

rxosr[10:0]

ncoff[19:0]

crgain[10:0]

enable

1Ch [6:4] 1Ch [3:0]

1Ch [7] 20h, 21h 21h, 22h, 23h

24h, 25h 70h [1] 71h,72h

1Fh[5:0]

2 B 1 271 0346E 007 0 20 03

PH+FIFO MODE:

Packet Structure:

<Permeable> <Sync> <Length> <CRC>

Selected Modulation type is: GFSk

Packet Handler ON

LSB/MSB First MSB

Each byte of the Header, Packet Length and

Data will be sent MSB first

Enable CRC YES

CRC Over Data Only YES CRC will be Calculated Over Data Only

Select CRC TYPE CCIT CRC will be Calculated Over Data Only

Headers in Packet Header 3 & 2 & 1 & 0



87

Variable Packet Length YES

Sync Word Length Sync word 3 & 2

Selected Preamble Length (in nibbles resolution) - (Decimal value between 0 to 511)

8

Configure sync Word 3 Value 2D

Configure sync Word 2 Value D4

Configure sync Word 1 Value 00

Configure sync Word 0 Value 00

Manchester is DISABLED, the

Actual Number of Preamble bits

will be: 32

The Recommended Pream-

ble Length is 32 (bits) and if

Antenna Diversity is

enabled, 64 (bits).

These values should also be configured into the RX Expected Headers (addresses 0x3F, 0x40,

0x41 & 0x42)

Configure TX Header 3 Value 03




TX Clock configuration 00

RX Configuration:

(This value vary from the using of different daughter cards

RX Header 3 individual bit check mask

Value

FF

RX Header 2 individual bit check mask Value

FF

RX Header 1 individual bit check mask Value

FF



88

RX Header 0 individual bit check mask

Value

FF

RX Expect Broadcast at Header 3 YES

(Broadcast Packet will

be accepted)




Perform Header 3 Value comparison? NO




Select Preamble Detection Threshold (in nibble resolution)

5

Register address is required to enable in program: Reg. Address

Setting Value (hexa) default ? Information

1C AB These registers are for RX

modem ONLY 1D 40 This is the Default Value after RESET

20 71

These registers are for RX modem ONLY

21 40 22 34 23 6E 24 00 25 07 30 AC 32 F0 33 42

34 08 This is the Default Value after RESET

35 2A This is the Default Value after RESET Relevant for RX settings Only

36 2D This is the Default Value after RESET

37 D4 This is the Default Value after RESET



3A 03

Relevant for TX settings Only



89

3B 02


3C 01


3D 00 This is the Default Value after RESET Relevant for TX settings Only

3E 00 This is the Default Value after RESET

3F 03

Relevant for RX settings Only

40 02


41 01


42 00 This is the Default Value after RESET Relevant for RX settings Only

43 FF This is the Default Value after RESET Relevant for RX settings Only




56 00 This is the Default Value after RESET Relevant for RX settings Only

6E 27

TX DATA RATE 6F 52

70 2C 71 2B 72 50

TX Frequency Deviation


76 BB This is the Default Value after RESET

Carrier Frequency




90

APPENDIX C ITU regions

Region 1

Region 2

Region 3

ISM Band allocation around the globe



91

APPENDIX D

Sample Orienteering Map, this is the Stockholm Orienteering competition map.

BOM (Bill of material)



92

APPENDIX E

Serial Port Programming code:

using System.Text; using System.Windows.Forms; namespace SerialCommChat_CS { public partial class Form1 : Form { private System.IO.Ports.SerialPort serialPort = new System.IO.Ports.SerialPort(); public Form1() { InitializeComponent(); } private void btnConnect_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { if (serialPort.IsOpen) { serialPort.Close(); } try { serialPort.PortName = cbbCOMPorts.Text; serialPort.BaudRate = 115200; serialPort.Parity = System.IO.Ports.Parity.None; serialPort.DataBits = 8; serialPort.StopBits = System.IO.Ports.StopBits.One; // serialPort.Encoding = System.Text.Encoding.Unicode; serialPort.Open(); lblMessage.Text = cbbCOMPorts.Text + " connected."; btnConnect.Enabled = false; btnDisconnect.Enabled = true; } catch (Exception ex) { MessageBox.Show(ex.ToString()); } } private void DataReceived(object sender, Sys-tem.IO.Ports.SerialDataReceivedEventArgs e) { txtDataReceived.BeginInvoke(new myDelegate(updateTextBox)); } public delegate void myDelegate(); public void updateTextBox() { //---for receiving plan ASCII text--- //txtDataReceived.AppendText(serialPort.ReadExisting()); //txtDataReceived.ScrollToCaret(); //---UNICODE work-around--- int bytesToRead = serialPort.BytesToRead; char[] ch = new char[bytesToRead];



93

int bytesRead = 0; bytesRead = serialPort.Read(ch, 0, bytesToRead); string str = new string(ch, 0, bytesRead); txtDataReceived.AppendText(str); txtDataReceived.ScrollToCaret(); //Console.WriteLine("Data received"); } private void btnDisconnect_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { try { serialPort.Close(); lblMessage.Text = serialPort.PortName + " disconnected."; btnConnect.Enabled = true; btnDisconnect.Enabled = false; } catch (Exception ex) { MessageBox.Show(ex.ToString()); } } private void btnSend_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { try { serialPort.Write(txtDataToSend.Text + Environment.NewLine); txtDataReceived.AppendText(">" + txtDataToSend.Text + Environ-ment.NewLine); txtDataReceived.ScrollToCaret(); txtDataToSend.Text = string.Empty; } catch (Exception ex) { MessageBox.Show(ex.ToString()); } } private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) { // set the event handler for the DataReceived event serialPort.DataReceived += new System.IO.Ports.SerialDataReceivedEventHandler(DataReceived); // display all the serial port names on the local computer string[] portNames = System.IO.Ports.SerialPort.GetPortNames(); for (int i = 0; i <= portNames.Length - 1; i++) { cbbCOMPorts.Items.Add(portNames[i]); } btnDisconnect.Enabled = false; } private void btnDialNumber_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { serialPort.Write("ATDT " + txtPhoneNumber.Text + Environment.NewLine); } private void btnAnswerCall_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {



94

serialPort.Write("AT*EVA" + Environment.NewLine); } private void cbbCOMPorts_SelectedIndexChanged(object sender, EventArgs e) { } private void Label1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { } private void timer1_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e) { listBox1.Items.Add(DateTime.Now.ToLongTimeString() + "," + Date-Time.Now.ToLongDateString()); } private void txtDataReceived_TextChanged(object sender, EventArgs e) { } private void OnTimerEvent(object sender, EventArgs e) { } private void listBox1_SelectedIndexChanged(object sender, EventArgs e) { } } }



95

REFERENCES

1. Daniel M. Dobkin, ―RFID Handbook: The RF in RFID Passive UHF RFID in Practice‖,

Elsevier, 2008.

2. K. Finkenzeller, ―RFID Handbook: Fundamentals and Applications in Contactless Smart

Cards and Identification‖, John Wiley & Sons; 2 edition, 2003.

3. Si4030/31/32 Register Description Document, Rev.0.1.

4. AN550 Programming Guide document from the Silicon Labs, Rev.0.1 12/09

5. Tan Zhihua, ―The Application of GPS/GIS Navigation and Positioning System in Cross-

Country Orienteering‖, International conference on computer science and software

Engineering. 2008.

6. Si1000 and Si1010 Development Kit user guide, Rev.0.1 1/10.

7. Jianliang Zheng and Myung J.Lee, ―A comprehensive performance study of IEEE

802.15.4‖

8. IEEE P802.15.4/D 18, Draft Standard: Low Rate Wireless Personal Area Networks, Feb.

2003.

9. IEEE 802.11, Part 11: Wireless LAN medium access control (MAC) and physical layer

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10. AN539 EZMacPro Overview document, Rev.0.1 9/10

11. Si1000/1/2/3/4/5 data sheet document, Rev1.0

12. Said A.Elshayeb, Khalid Bin Hasnan and Chua Yik Yen, ―RFID Technology and ZigBee

Networking in Improving Supply Chain Traceability‖

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Management Based of RFID&ZigBee Technology‖, 2010 International Conference on

computer Application and System Modelling (ICCASM 2010)

14. Tim Cutler, ―Implementing ZigBee wireless mesh networking‖ July 2005.

15. Lin Zhang, Guangcun Liand Zhigeng Pan,‖ Orienteering Based on System Simulation

Technology‖.Second Workshop on Digital Media and its Application in Museum

&Heritage.



96

16. Ibrahim Khalid, Mahathir Almashor and Fahim Sufi, ‖Real-time Physiological Condition

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International confer-

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Documents

Wireless mesh networking for the Outdoor Sports (Orienteering)